House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 95 and 96 to which I have put my name. In doing so, I have basically three concerns. First, I have a strong suspicion that the Government will bring no further proposal for the reform of the House of Lords during the lifetime of this Parliament. Secondly, related to that, a review would act as a spur, so there is just a chance that a review might encourage them to do so. Thirdly, I think the public should know that many of us in this House favour a much more radical solution to the composition and powers of this House. I am one of those: I believe in an elected Chamber.

That takes me to the point made by my noble friend Lord Hamilton. I entirely agree with him that fundamental to any debate should be the powers of this House, because from a decision on the powers stems the decision as to composition. If you are content with being but a revising Chamber, then a process very similar to what we now have is perfectly appropriate. But if, as I believe, you need to have a Chamber which has powers commensurate with the House of Commons and can face the House of Commons down in appropriate cases, then it has got to be elected. I have always believed that, to stand against the elective dictatorship of which my father wrote and spoke, we need an elected House with powers similar to those in the House of Commons.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I very largely agree with the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. My Amendment 101A is slightly more ambitious—perhaps too ambitious for the taste of your Lordships this evening. We have debated this Bill for four full days now. I do not wish to test the patience of noble Lords much further, but I do think we are missing an opportunity here.

I rather share the view that, as far as the Government are concerned, this will be it in relation to this House. I do not see them moving to any further stage, certainly not in this Parliament. All the evidence, for instance, on an age restriction in this House suggests that it is slightly eclipsed by the average age of the most recent appointments made by the Government to this House.

However, it is worth pausing to consider that, since two fundamental issues have arisen with implications for the constitution—those being devolution and Brexit—we have had no deep thought as to how we now wish this country to be governed. In fact, the last royal commission, which is what my amendment calls for, was instigated in 1969: Lord Crowther started it, and it was finished by Lord Kilbrandon in 1973. It was a contentious commission. Two people resiled from signing it, and people did not agree on it, but at least there was a debate about how we wished this country to be governed.

We have seen a lot of things happen without there being any thorough or clear thought as to whether they are the sort of things that we want to happen. We have seen an expansion in the Welsh Parliament; just recently, they have extended the number of Members. We have seen debates within the Scottish Parliament as to whether you can be a Member of Parliament as well as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. We have had debates about there being no English Parliament when all the component parts of the United Kingdom now have their own Assemblies.

We have heard how in Northern Ireland there has been paralysis over recent years. Do we want to look again at the d’Hondt process? Do we want to look again at how we select the First Minister in Northern Ireland? Do we want to look again at how political parties can self-designate in Northern Ireland?

We have seen recently moves to reorganise local government in England without much debate—a move to unitaries, getting rid of a lot of our district authorities. I personally support that in most cases, but we have had no consideration as to what that means for the representation of the voters in being represented properly.

In the House of Lords itself, in the last Parliament—my noble friend Lord Forsyth was very quick on this the whole time—we had Ministers in this Parliament who were unpaid. I would suggest that, in a democracy, when we have a bicameral system of legislation, to have unpaid Ministers performing the roles of Ministers in the other House is absolutely unacceptable. I very much hope that the Treasury Bench will confirm that there are no Ministers currently doing this unpaid. Incidentally, as we have heard, the majority of Ministers who were doing it unpaid when we on this side of the House were in Government were actually, yes, hereditary Peers.

When I first came to this House, which was not very long ago, the Lord Speaker told me that he thought the difference between the other place and this place was that in the other place you get up and you tell people, and in this place you get up and you ask people. In that spirit, I would ask whether your Lordships agree that what we are doing with this Bill is just spraying a bit of body paint on to a rotting carcass. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace: I think the British public are in a febrile state and do not feel that they are being properly represented. We need to do something about that as a matter of urgency, and what better way than to have a root and branch royal commission to look at how this country is governed and should be governed, how the balance of power is distributed around the country, and whether we need a bicameral system of government going forward?

If we do not need that, so be it; we will have to have some other check on the Executive. If we do, and I suspect that most of your Lordships would think that we do, then we need to decide what the powers of that second body—us, your Lordships’ House, whatever we want to call it—need to be.

I personally believe—I have changed my mind on this—that what we are seeing with this Bill is a move towards a completely different second Chamber. I would not be at all surprised if, in the next decade-plus, we do have an elected senate. Maybe that is a good thing; I do not know if it is a good thing or not. What I do know is that we need to have the debate, on all the issues that I have mentioned. I do not believe that this Bill should become an Act until we have thoroughly thought through the implications of what we are doing.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. This short debate has ranged very widely, and I would like to bring it back to something a little narrower. Before I do so, I will say—as I said at an earlier stage in Committee—that I agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham: we are headed in the direction of a democratically elected upper Chamber. Quite frankly, a House that is wholly appointed in the 21st century, in a democracy, is a ridiculous thing; it has no legitimacy. This is where we will have to go. I do not say that because I am avid for change but because it is an inevitable and logical consequence of the process that we are engaged in today.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, can I just reply to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on what I thought was a disobliging and wholly unnecessary speech? He said that this is a five-clause Bill and does not therefore need much discussion. Well, I can remember—I expect that the noble Lord can as well—the Maastricht Bill of some years ago, which was four clauses long. The House was full every day and night, and this went on for a great deal of time. It was an important constitutional issue. This, too, is an important constitutional issue. The difference between me and the noble Lord is that he thinks this Bill is about getting rid of the hereditary Peers, while I think it is about creating a wholly appointed House, which we have never had before, with the appointments in the hands of the Prime Minister. That is why many of the amendments taken today and on previous days are so important.

There is no attempt to try to filibuster this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, cannot point to any individual who has spoken for very long. It is hardly surprising that so many of us want to get involved in this debate. I am sorry that we are not going to hear again from the noble Lord or the rest of the Labour Party, but that is their decision; perhaps they are so horrified by what the noble Lord’s Government are putting forward that they do not want to listen to it anymore. I, for one, am very happy to sit here.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I am now genuinely confused by this Bill. It seems to me that the purpose of this place, if it has any purpose, is to look at bad legislation—bad proposals—and seek to improve it. Every time we try to do that for this Bill, we are accused of filibustering. If the Government are simply not prepared to listen to anything we are saying, or to take into account any of our amendments, we are all wasting our time. I am equally confused as to what is really—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)]

The noble Lord said that the Government accused him of filibustering. He will have heard from every Minister who has responded from this Dispatch Box that we welcome these discussions. I think the point that my noble friend made was that some contributions seem a little long, but we on the Front Bench would not accuse anybody of filibustering.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

I am not saying that the Front Bench has accused anyone of filibustering, but we have been accused of filibustering when we have probed the reasoning behind some of these rather strange proposals.

To be honest, I am equally confused as to whether this Bill is about reducing the numbers in this House or whether it is about getting rid of the hereditaries. We have heard that the hereditaries contribute far more than some life Peers who do not attend this House. So is the Bill about getting rid of the hereditaries or about reducing numbers? It seems to me that it is not about both.

I have a real problem with this clause. We can argue until the cows come home about what “participation” means; some of the speeches have already conflated “attendance” and “participation”. I fully endorse what my noble friend Lord Blencathra said. During my early days in this Chamber, we listened to the electric exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I did not understand what they were talking about—and neither did my noble friend, so he confesses. As he said, I do not think that those in the Box understood a word of what they were talking about, and Hansard probably had to stay up overtime to work it out. It was on such a different level that only a fool would have intervened at that point. I was reminded of the adage, which has been attributed variously to Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain, that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

That makes me think about “participation” as defined in subsection (3)(a), in the new clause proposed in Amendment 26, which refers to “speaking in the Chamber”. Will we really judge noble Lords by how often they speak in the Chamber? Without naming names, we all know that, among our goodly number, there are people who pop up on every occasion to speak. Are we to judge the validity of their existence by the fact that, like Zebedee, they bounce up and ask a question on every topic? Alternatively, will we be a little bit more circumspect in how we judge noble Lords’ contributions?

I heard what my noble friend Lord Bethell said about his forebears, but that is nothing compared to John Erle-Drax, the MP for Wareham in the mid-19th century, who was known as the “Silent MP”. He made only one statement in the House of Commons: on a particularly hot evening, he inquired of the Speaker whether it might be possible to open the window just a bit. He is not recorded as ever having said anything before or since. This ought to be a question of what noble Lords say, rather than how often they say it.

The other issue I have been going on about is the quality of noble Lords’ speeches. I know that not everybody has a background in public speaking, has served in the other place or has the natural fluency and eloquence that the gods vested on my noble friend Lord Hannan. But, increasingly in the Commons—and, I am afraid, here—speaker after speaker gets up and reads out a pre-prepared statement. That is not a debate. That just means that they want to publicise what they have decided; or, worse, what they have been handed by a foundation—very often the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, I regret to say—or some PR outlet. I have sat in this Chamber and heard a speaker read out what was clearly provided to them by some kind of lobbying group, and they got their text muddled up between what “we want”, “they want” and “I want”; it was clear that they had not even previously read what they were reading out. We need to improve the quality of debate in this Chamber, and not judge people on how often they pop up and ask a question.

On

“serving on committees of the House”,

there are not enough committees for all Members to serve on. Are Members who are not fortunate enough to serve on a Select Committee going to be penalised because they do not?

On “asking oral questions”, that is perfectly good, but you do not always get in on an Oral Question session; you have to jump up and down very often, and you are lucky if your hit rate is high.

On “tabling written questions”, let us not look at the quantity of Written Questions; let us look at some of the Answers—let us try to get an Answer. I have noticed over the years that Answers are masterful in their evasiveness. They do not even attempt to answer the Question, and if the Question is too difficult, they say it is at disproportionate cost to gather the information. Why do we bother asking some of these Written Questions, particularly when they cost hundreds of pounds to the public to provide a non-Answer? But we can all do that, if we are going to be judged on asking Written Questions. We can do it remotely, lie in bed and table hundreds of Written Questions. Lo and behold, we will all be judged to be doing terribly well in terms of participation. I rather think not.

The amendment talks about

“any other activity which the Committee considers to be participation in the work of the House”.

What does that mean? That is an all-encompassing statement. What can it possibly mean? This is a terrible amendment.

We should concentrate far more on the quality of what and how we debate here, on the quality of the speeches and levels of engagement. To seek to prescribe and identify how each and every one of us—individuals here for completely different reasons—should behave in some hideous template way to be decided by a committee is not the way to improve what goes on in this place.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I want to quickly say something about participation—I think back to a long time ago when I was involved in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill. What goes into the law does not happen in here; by the time a Bill gets into Parliament, it is already set in concrete—the anchor is in the ground. If you want to see what goes into legislation, you have got to influence the thinking behind it with the Civil Service. I, and many others, certainly spent some time on that.

The statutory instruments and regulations that come out of it are the real things that affect how it works and operates. You need to talk to the civil servants behind it, before those regulations appear, because we cannot amend them or do anything about them. It was on that Bill, or perhaps another one, where we said that they had to come back with regulations within a year and that was seen as revolutionary because it almost seems beyond our powers. We did not actually turn them down and it has always been a big problem here.

How do you measure participation in the all-party groups, the discussions behind it, the influencing you have done and what comes out? It happened with that Bill, and it happened again with identity cards—there was a huge amount of work behind the scenes on that, and on the Digital Economy Act, Part 3, and all the age verification stuff—I chaired the British standard on that. The Government had something which they totally ignored, but it has become an international standard. There is all the stuff we do which may not be on the Floor of the House, because, in general, it is too late by the time it gets to the Floor. You have to get to the people who are writing the stuff before it gets here, and that means participation in other groups, such as the all-party groups and other influential ones, which you do not have recorded.

I do a lot with entrepreneurship—in fact, I am on X today, encouraging MPs to support entrepreneurship in their local areas. There is a huge amount of other parliamentary stuff and influence you can do. How on earth do you measure that? Maybe you say that the only thing that counts is talking on this Floor. For many, it is the last thing that counts.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

What has changed is that there was a general election, and this was a manifesto commitment. Broadly speaking, it is a good idea to obey manifesto commitments. The longer answer to the noble Lord’s question is that I was not the first to introduce such a Bill; Eric Lubbock was the first Member of this House to propose that there should be no more by-elections. Had it been agreed at the time that the Lubbock Bill, which I will call it, was introduced, there would be only about 25 hereditary Peers left. Due to the constant refusal of people to accept the end of the by-elections, a whole new generation of hereditary Peers has arrived, so that, for the objective of ending the hereditary principle in this House to be concluded, it would take another 40 or 50 years. It is spilt milk. I respect noble Lord, Lord Forsyth: he occasionally made the odd favourable comment towards my Bill, for which I am very grateful; it was an all-party Bill supported by all parties and in huge numbers. But times have changed. It is the time for apologies from Messrs True, Mancroft and Strathclyde to their colleagues for blocking the Bill in the way that they did. Along with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who we will have the pleasure of hearing from in the next amendment, they are the ones who have the explaining to do, not me.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

Does the noble Lord, who should be a little more cheerful having achieved what he set out to do, not accept that there were many of us who were not in this House and therefore unable to support his Bill or otherwise?

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

Order! I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was giving way; he had sat down. The time had already been exceeded under the rules of the Companion. In terms of the Companion, is it not time that the noble Lord, Lord True, indicated whether he was pressing his amendment.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I just want to make a comment. At the moment, the Prime Minister is on his feet at the other end, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, pointed out, talking about issues of national security and the defence of the nation. Our debate does not hold up terribly well against that. The noble Lord opened it in a moderate and helpful way. If noble Lords wish to continue debating the amendment, they are at liberty to do so; I just ask them to reflect on how the world outside sees the debate.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

Hear, hear to that—I could not agree more with the Leader of the House. We should not be debating this at this time at all, and we are in risk of rendering ourselves irrelevant and foolish by debating these matters when things of far greater importance are going on. But I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that he must accept that the composition of this House is very different from that of the time when he first introduced his Bill. Many of those who are now in this House would have supported it at that time. Surely it is only right that we have the ability to debate these matters, for the first time in many cases, now.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made reference to me. I want to put it on the record, because he has said it before, that the amount of time that I spoke during the debates on his Bill in 2018—a Bill which had six hours of debate—was under twice as long as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has spoken today. In those six hours of debate, I spoke for 16 minutes; that was all. It was not a prevarication at all.

--- Later in debate ---

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that this is the reason why there are so many amendments down to the Bill: because it is entirely silent on all those other promises, not just on the detail of them but the timing of when we might expect them. If we had had a White Paper, a draft Bill or even the consultations that the Labour manifesto promised, we would be able to talk about them, rather than have to try to bring them to the debate now.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

For clarification, the Government pray in aid their manifesto and talk about the grammar of where the full stop falls, but it is worth looking at their latest manifesto. In the same paragraph, where they talks about immediate modernisation and legislation to remove the right of hereditary Peers, they go on to say:

“At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords”.


It is not an add-on; it is the same paragraph.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

It is indeed. Whether the grammar matters or not, these are clearly linked, and as for those colleagues we are going to lose through this Bill, who were kept here as surety, as a reminder, to make sure that the deal was followed through, surely we owe it to them to answer the question, before they are ushered out of your Lordships’ House, of whether the Government intend to fulfil the rest of their manifesto and what their plans for the future of this House are. If we cannot have that dignified and eloquent reminder through the presence of our hereditary colleagues, let us write very clearly in this Bill, in words and punctuation that should act as a perpetual reminder, that the Government are once again giving us a half-baked reform.

The limbo in which it leaves your Lordships’ House is unquestionably worse than the status quo. This Bill removes 88 hard-working Members, drawn from all corners of the House but predominantly from outwith the Government’s own Benches, and places the sole power to replace them and to appoint the temporal Members of this House in the hands of the Prime Minister. It gives him an unlimited power with no statutory limitations—not even modest guidance of the sort that noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and others suggested would be helpful when we discussed this at Second Reading.

In this group and later, I hope the noble Baroness will be able to address the questions that are left unanswered through this Bill. Would she be open to an annual cap on the number of nominations that the Prime Minister can make? What does she think of a formula such as that proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Burns, in the Lord Speaker’s committee? I was very grateful for her generous words about my former boss, my noble friend Lady May, who adhered roughly to a two-out, one-in process—I crunched the numbers—as proposed by the Lord Speaker’s committee, but subsequent Prime Ministers have not, not least the present Prime Minister, whom this Bill will make even more powerful.

In 2022, Sir Keir Starmer endorsed proposals from former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown to transfer power from Westminster to the British people. He said:

“I think the House of Lords is indefensible”,


and said he wanted to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber with a really strong mission. That reformist zeal is not fully reflected in the Bill before us. The Prime Minister in fact has appointed a more Peers in his first 200 days than three Prime Ministers—my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak—put together. He has appointed more even than Sir Tony Blair, who was not known for his restraint when handing out ermine robes. He has already appointed more Labour Peers than the number of Cross-Benchers that this Bill will purge from your Lordships’ House.

And the people he has put forward, although we welcome them all to this House and do not denigrate the role that they will play, are drawn from a rather narrow cadre. Instead of the knowledge of nuclear engineering held by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, or the professional experience of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, as a chartered surveyor, or the passionate campaigning for our creative industries that I see from the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Freyberg, we have, since the start of this Parliament—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I will just make a couple of points. First, we are not abolishing hereditary Peers; we are abolishing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Secondly, 26 years ago we removed 667 hereditary Peers and as far as I can judge, that has not had a devastating impact on the monarchy; in fact, the monarchy seems to have survived quite well. Thirdly, the fundamental difference between the hereditary principle as applied to sitting and voting here, and the hereditary principle as applied to the monarchy—like my noble friend Lord Brennan, I support the constitutional monarchy very strongly—is that if the monarch started to do what hereditary Peers in this House do, which is to express, as they are quite within their rights to do, detailed arguments in favour of one political party or another, I do not think the monarchy would last very long. There is a fundamental difference between the political role of hereditaries in this House, and the wholly significant and important non-political, head-of-state role of the monarchy at a national level.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

With that in mind, I invite the noble Lord to have a word with those who drafted the Labour manifesto, which says, as a standalone sentence: “Hereditary peers remain indefensible”.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the comments of both the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and my noble friend Lord Thurso. There is not, and never has been, the sort of link between the hereditary Peers and the monarch that I suspect the noble Earl, Lord Devon, was suggesting. We have one period of worked examples of this, and I am afraid it was a little while ago. In 1649, when Charles I was condemned, he was condemned not just by Members of the House of Commons but by hereditary Members of the House of Lords.

A decade later, there was a House of Lords, but it was not called the House of Lords. It was called the Other Place—capital “O”, capital “P”—because the Parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell, recognised the need for a revising chamber but did not like the concept of heredity. Therefore, Oliver Cromwell appointed a House of Lords. That House of Lords did not last very long, and the hereditary principle came back with Charles II. So it was not the case that a hereditary House of Lords meant that we were done with monarchy for ever. The two were just different things, and different considerations applied.

The lesson of Charles I—which is still relevant—is that, at the end of the day, Kings and Queens in this country rule by the consent of the people. If they go outwith the conventions, they will find themselves in difficulties again. With the current King and Prince of Wales, this seems an impossibly unlikely scenario, but it is still a theoretical possibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, first, retaining the connection between these two Great Officers of State and this place would reassure those who are concerned about the weakening link between this place and the monarch. Secondly, what does the Lord Privy Seal say about the role of the Lord Great Chamberlain? As she will be aware, he has joint control, with the Lord Speaker and the Speaker of the other place, over Westminster Hall and the crypt chapel.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, these two Great Officers of State are part of the framework that governs the Government and how they function. It would be humiliating for them to have to apply to something such as the commission to be able to come in here and fulfil their roles, which are part of our collective memory and the way we do things. Can you imagine going to the commission and asking, “Excuse me, I want to come in to help with the State Opening of Parliament tomorrow. Please, can I have a pass?” It is beyond reason.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Lord Swire Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is right. The United Nations and other partners are continuing to monitor and update figures for the volumes and types of aid currently entering Gaza but, given that that is a key element of the ceasefire agreement, the UN can publicly share only overall truck figures for now. So we do not currently have the usual level of detailed information, but we will continue to work closely with trusted partners on the ground to understand how UK aid is being distributed. All UK delivery partners are required, as per our agreements with them, to collate this information, so we expect that in due course.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one way of instilling greater confidence in this three-stage process is to allow the international press into Gaza? What discussions has he had with the Government of Israel on allowing the international press in? Further to that, what discussions has he had with his UN counterparts and colleagues about the whole issue of allowing people in to see whether crimes have been committed by either side?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a valid point. One of the reasons given for no access was the conflict and the troops, but now that we have a ceasefire, we can ensure that there is proper access, which is why I am focusing on the humanitarian aid and support going in. The noble Lord makes the valid point that upholding international law, and ensuring that all sides are subject to it, is right. We will continue to support the ICC and other efforts to ensure that that is held to.

Syria

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

To answer my noble friend’s latter point—again, we addressed this in the past week—we are of course aware of the presence of Israel across the Alpha line in the Golan Heights. The UN Disengagement Observer Force agreement of 1974 is important for the stability of the wider region. The Foreign Secretary discussed developments with his counterpart on 8 December, making sure that Israel honoured all those commitments under that agreement. As I said earlier in relation to north-east Syria, we have done the same with Turkey regarding honouring those commitments and sticking to the agreements.

In terms of sanctions, as I mentioned, there are 310 individuals whom this country has sanctioned who remain accountable for their crimes. We are certainly looking at ways that we can ensure that we follow them and make sure that they cannot use any assets that they get out of Syria. In fact, my objective would be to see just how those illicit funds could be followed. The important thing is that we have given, and will continue to give, aid and support to the people of Syria. When things become more stable, we will be in a position to review sanctions.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his earlier comments, which are reassuring, up to a point. I follow on from the comments of my noble friend Lord Ahmad. On Captagon, we are presented with a unique opportunity to interdict and to stop the spread of Captagon. The Minister said that it had not reached the UK, which is reassuring, but it has certainly reached mainland Europe through some Italian ports. This is a $57 billion a year industry funded by the Assad family and their wider relations, not least the Makhlouf family. Can the Minister assure us, first, that we will take a forward-leaning role in this? It has affected mainly countries in the Middle East, as he says, but the UK could play a serious part by bringing expertise to destroy this pernicious trade. Secondly, will he keep under review the sanctions list to ensure that all those involved in this trade are sanctioned?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. Let me be clear that, while we are unaware of Captagon reaching the streets of the UK, shipments have been seized in Europe, as he rightly points out. As I said before, it presents a wider threat in the region, which is why we are collaborating and working with our allies to ensure that this trade can be stopped. I hope that one positive result of the situation in Syria will be that it will be stopped. That is something to be positive about. I repeat, as I said to my noble friend, that we are committed to maintaining the sanctions that we have introduced to ensure that people are held to account for their crimes, including this illicit trade.

International Anti-corruption Court

Lord Swire Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, as I said, we support the objectives of the proposed international anti-corruption court. We look forward to considering the draft treaty and will continue to engage in international discussions on this subject as they arise, and as we have done to date. As my noble friend said, these discussions should not detract from the work the Government are already delivering to hold kleptocrats to account. For example, the UK’s international corruption unit has a world-leading capability and has successfully investigated international bribery, corruption and related money-laundering offences within a UK nexus, resulting in prosecutions and the confiscation of stolen assets.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall the problems that we have had with the ICC, for example, as some countries simply will not sign up to these international bodies? Some of the most corrupt countries in the world are not going to adhere to anything that such an international court would do. I broadly welcome the idea of such a court, but wonder whether, in reality, some of the worst offenders simply will not turn up.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a valid point. We are working collaboratively, as my noble friend said, with other countries to ensure that we can look at this in principle and then see how we can achieve it. My main point is that we should follow the money. We have actually been extremely successful: the unit I just talked about has been successful in ensuring that illicit funds are returned and that we sanction people. An important tool in our armour is that ability to ensure that people know that, when they try to get funds out of their country, we will follow it and return it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to listen to most of the speeches today. Without singling out too many, it was particularly nice to hear my former House of Commons colleague, my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham, who is not in his place, make his very good maiden speech. He did that great trick as a writer: when anyone asks, “Am I in your book?”, he assents to the fact that they are, meaning they all rush out and buy it. What he did not realise is, being perfidious politicians, everyone will go to see if they are in the index; if not, they will not buy the book.

I was sorry to miss the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, because I understand it to have been a great speech. She and I crossed in the other place, and we both variously served as Ministers of State, not least in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We have that in common, and I wish her a well-earned retirement. But if there was any speech that impressed me most—perhaps not unexpectedly—it was that of the Convenor of the Cross Benches, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, this morning. He gave an extraordinarily interesting, intelligent and measured speech, as one would expect. There was much in it on which we would do well to reflect.

There will be opportunity enough in Committee to probe the Government closer on many of the points that we have heard often today. To avoid repetition, and with your Lordships’ indulgence, my comments will range wider than the narrow confines of this rather unsatisfactory Bill. I genuinely believe that the Government are missing a trick. Instead of nibbling around the edges of our fragile and rather well-balanced constitution, we should call for a royal commission on how this country is governed, not unlike the commission that produced the Kilbrandon report between 1969 and 1973.

Since devolution, and since Brexit when we lost our MEPs, we have had no serious cross-party discussion about how we wish this country to be administered and governed. I agree with my noble friend Lord Horam that more than half the problem of the system not working must be due to what is going on in the House of Commons. We need urgently to review the role of Members of Parliament, how many of them we want, their pay and conditions, and to try to get them to behave as Members of Parliament. I regret to say that it was, I believe, the Liberal Democrats who rather skewered the behaviour of MPs. As a Member of Parliament I often found myself doing the job of a local councillor because that was what was expected of one, since that was what the Liberal Democrats were doing, rather than holding the Executive to account.

We also need to look at how our regional Governments are working, or not. Is it really desirable or justifiable that the House of Commons has 650 seats and an average of 105,000 electors per constituency, whereas the Scottish Parliament has 129 seats which, on average, each represents only 42,000 electors? The Senedd in Wales currently has 60 seats—although I see it is demanding to increase that number to 96—which, on average, each represents only 52,000 electors. The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 seats which each represents only 21,000 electors.

Do the differing systems of elections we have make sense anymore? The United Kingdom Parliament uses the first past the post system; the Scottish Parliament uses the additional member system, the Welsh Senedd similarly; and the Northern Ireland Assembly uses the single transferable vote. What about voting ages? Is it really sensible that in United Kingdom general elections, the voting age is 18; in Scotland, it is 16; in Wales, it is 16; and in Northern Ireland, it is 18? What is the rationale? What is the justification?

Of course, there are some good reasons behind the differences, not least in Northern Ireland, where the Assembly is designed to ensure a power-sharing agreement. In 2016 and 2017, power to reform the electoral system, the electoral franchise and the size of the devolved legislatures was devolved to Scotland and Wales, subject to the support of two-thirds of membership. There is an idea: the requirement of two-thirds of membership to alter them. The Northern Ireland Assembly cannot reform its own electoral system.

Yet here we are, now debating the removal of one small grouping from this House, who are legitimately here, without addressing the bigger pictures and anomalies that persist. Not least is the fact that, as has been mentioned, we have Bishops, but no other faith leaders, by right, to represent other faith communities. We have no one from the SNP, we have no one from Sinn Féin, and more ludicrously, given their current standing in the polls, we have no one from Reform. This House is not currently representative of anything, let alone the electorate. So by all means let us embrace change, but let us do so with an eye on the bigger picture. Let us convene this commission in partnership with the devolved Parliaments and, while we are at it, let us discuss the funding formula, which is ludicrously out of date; even Lord Barnett accepted that, shortly before his death. Then we can see what role a second Chamber can play, who it should be composed of and how many people should be in it—even, indeed, whether we need a bicameral system at all.

I have just recently seen that I have been invited—and I imagine other noble Lords had been invited too—by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, to a meeting next week to discuss what is termed English devolution. I imagine this will be a further look at local government reform—

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I hate to interrupt my noble friend, but I wonder if he has seen the flashing light.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

I am most grateful—I have reached the advisory time and I shall take your Lordships’ advice and begin my wind-up immediately. I imagine the meeting will be a look at local government, not the regional assemblies championed by Gordon Brown and Lord Prescott. We need to look at where want to have unitaries, district councils or county councils. Let us look at all this, but let us also look at a bigger review. The Government should look at Lords reform in a wider sense when we look at constitutional reform. It should not be done piecemeal, and I hope that they will rise to this occasion.

Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about everybody in the region feeling safe and secure. That is what the two-state solution is: a safe and secure Israel and a strong and viable state of Palestine. There is a lesson on this. At the beginning of his comments, the noble Lord made a really telling remark that, at some point—we want it to be sooner rather than later—violence will subside and we will move towards peace and negotiation. At no time can the countries involved in negotiation, and in trying to reach the two-state solution, take a step back and think, “It’s quietened down now, we can forget about it”. The point he makes is that we need constant vigilance to ensure that, until we can guarantee the security and safety of civilians across the region, we have to remain engaged. I take very seriously the points he made on that.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

For some years now, we have had a British military programme, with British military training teams training the Lebanese army extremely successfully. Does the Leader of the House include the remnants of those trainers, if we still have them in Lebanon, in her calls to come away from that country now? If they are still there, does she share my concern that they could be inadvertently drawn into this conflict?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am not sighted on the issue of the trainers that the noble Lord referred to, but he will know that our military personnel will always act within international law, which is defensive. I will double-check the point about whether we have anyone in the region in that regard. I was looking hopefully at my noble friend the Minister of State for Defence, who will come back to the noble Lord and write to him with the details.

Long-Term Strategic Challenges Posed by China

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, referred in his trenchant speech to the increasingly belligerent comments coming from President Xi. He is absolutely right so to do, given the continuing militarisation and building out of the South China and East China Seas, which many of us have viewed for many years with increased concern, not least because of the uncertainty it is causing in the region for countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and of course Japan. It is also worth saying that there have been 180 incidents of coercive and risky operational behaviour against US planes over the past two years, and a further 120 incidents by the PLA on US allies. All this shows that the Chinese are probing constantly the defences of our allies.

It is no secret that Mr Putin, in Beijing recently to mark the 10th anniversary of the belt and road initiative, spoke of “common threats”, so seeking to bind China closer to Russia and tilting the relationship with China in terms of the increased trade and dependency on China that Russia will now have. We can all assume that among the things they did not discuss in front of the camera were the current situation in Ukraine and, obviously, that in Israel and Palestine.

I want to divide what I am going to say into several sections and talk quickly, trying not to repeat what those who have spoken already have said much more eloquently than I ever could. To touch briefly on the human rights aspect of this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for whom I have huge respect, having worked with him on these matters in the past, referred to the situation in the DPRK. I do not wish to detain your Lordships on this because I am seeking to obtain a debate on the DPRK in the near future, but on Monday 9 October China repatriated to the DPRK 600-plus North Korean refugees, many of whom were Christians. We can only assume that of those 600-plus North Koreans, the lucky ones are languishing in a concentration camp and the less fortunate ones will no longer be with us. We should absolutely call out China on every aspect of its human rights policy, be it in the DPRK, with the Uighurs in Xinjiang or indeed in Tibet—matters it refers to as internal matters and on which it is quick to close down any opposition.

The Minister, my noble friend Lord Howe, talked rightly about the situation in Hong Kong. Before this debate I read the Foreign Office’s latest six-month report, which makes for sober reading. While undoubtedly the economy of Hong Kong is thriving, the steady erosion of free speech and liberties, and the application of the national security law in Hong Kong, are causes of real concern.

We find ourselves in a position far from that we were in when I was the Minister for Asia. We were engaged on good relations with China; it was designated as a win-win situation, although some of us may have had our private doubts about it. To put it into context, that was when we were seeking finance for our critical infrastructure—for Hinkley, Sizewell and Bradwell—and when Huawei was still part of the deal. It coincided with a prime ministerial visit led by David Cameron in 2013, on which I was one of those who went to China with a large business delegation, and in return an incoming state visit from President Xi in 2015.

The one thing the United Kingdom cannot be accused of is consistency in its approach to relations with China. I have some sympathy with the Chinese, who take a very long-term view about everything in the same way that, increasingly, we take an incredibly short-term view. They must be left wondering why only a few years ago we were trying to attract them into almost every aspect of investment and infrastructure, but then closed the door on them.

The peril of following my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford is that he always mentions the Commonwealth, which is what I always want to mention too. He was right to do so. I declare my registered interest as the deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. There is much talk about China’s pursuit of rare earth minerals all around the Commonwealth, but I have to say that China has a very large and growing economy. It seems to me that it is as entitled to secure the tools to grow that economy as anyone else is.

If there is any fault for the fact that China is in places which were previously in the sphere of British influence, it lies at our door. It is because of our continuing neglect of the Commonwealth family in those parts of the world, which looked to—and still look to—the UK for friendship, leadership and co-operation. We have created a void; nature abhors a void and the Chinese have filled it—for example, in the Pacific islands, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

Next year, we have the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa. I hope that will concentrate minds on what is going on in that part of the world. However, it is not just there but all across Africa and the Caribbean. I regret that we cut our overseas aid budget, which has affected some of these places so adversely and left the door open for others—very often the Chinese—to come in. We cannot blame the Chinese for doing what we want to do, just because they are prepared to put the money on the table and we are not.

Let me give noble Lords two examples. For example, Sri Lanka is in the newspapers today. There is much criticism of people attending a seminar to attract investment in the Gulf for the Port City Colombo because the funding is Chinese. The whole idea of that webinar was surely to show the rest of the world the opportunities to dilute the Chinese funding. You cannot criticise on one hand and practise inactivity on the other. The first Commonwealth visit destination of our new king is Kenya, which is coming up shortly. Where has the new President Ruto just been? Trying to extend a loan in China. Kenya is a Commonwealth country, and we are so outraged that he has gone to China to extend a loan, but what are we doing about it? Again, you cannot criticise others for stepping into the breach.

Trade with China is growing. In 2017, Chinese investment in the United Kingdom was about £2.46 billion, but by 2021 that had increased to £5.1 billion—effectively doubling. Our relationship with China, whether we like it or not, is important. It seems that the Government’s approach, although I have found fault with the lack of consistency, is broadly right: to protect, to align and engage. However, as well as being alert to the threats posed by China—they are very real—we must also be alert to the opportunities, while remaining predictable and consistent in our relations with the Chinese.

The Importance of the Relationship Between the United Kingdom and India

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Verma on securing this important debate and say what an honour, privilege and pleasure it is to follow on from my noble friend Lord Minto’s excellent maiden speech. I much look forward to that of my old friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. I shall be in the Chamber to listen to her; I am interested to hear what she has to say as well.

I cannot claim the same illustrious connections with India as my noble friend did in his maiden speech, but I was the British Minister of State with responsibility for India, and was dispatched in that capacity to engage with the now Prime Minister, Modi, when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. It was also my duty to welcome him as Prime Minister on his visit in 2015. When I greeted him at the airport he embraced me warmly, saying that I had less hair than when he had seen me previously. I rather fear that, when I next see him, he might be inclined to repeat that, some seven or eight years later.

At that 2015 visit, a joint statement was issued by the then Prime Minister David Cameron and Prime Minister Modi. On the educational issue, it talked of driving further collaboration, including a range of digital technology-enabled education and training initiatives. Of course, that has been greatly accelerated by Covid. The UK India Business Council, whose founding chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, spoke earlier, has called, I think again, for mutual recognition of qualifications and permission for universities to offer joint and online degrees. Would the Minister like to comment on where that has got to?

Incidentally, I was extremely pleased to hear about the number of Indian students studying here. I would be interested to know how many Chevening scholars there are now. I also would like to make the point that I have always thought it ridiculous to include student numbers in the immigration figures.

We are about to enter round seven of the FTA negotiations. I wonder what progress we are making on that front. I do not think we should kid ourselves: India does not have many trade deals, and it will be long and complicated. Can the Minister update us on that?

The Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Philip Barton, met Foreign Minister Vinay Mohan Kwatra recently and talked about India’s ambitious plans for the G20 presidency, including strengthening co-operation and co-ordination in the UN, including at the UN Security Council. Your Lordships will be aware that India has been a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council eight times now, for a total of 16 years, the most recent turn being 2021-22. My old friend the Minister for External Affairs, Jaishankar, said on 15 December that India would be a candidate as a non-permanent member for the 2028-29 term. Is there a chance that, by then, India might be given a permanent seat on the Security Council? I know this is supported by a number of countries, not least the United Kingdom. As India takes a greater role—the stated ambition of Prime Minister Modi—not only in the SAARC region but wider afield, I think that would be welcome.

On a slightly more sensitive issue, India has perhaps not been as robust as we would like on the resolutions concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What diplomatic pressure is being applied in that respect? The great concern that I have, which was articulated by various people and various reports in the papers recently, is about the oil that originates in Russia, is refined in India and is imported into the United Kingdom by a number of companies, including BP and Shell. I am not suggesting that there is anything illegal in that, but at the end of the day it is providing money for Putin’s regime. What can the Minister do to make sure that we are not importing oil originating from Russia that is refined in India?