House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I declare a personal interest, in that my son-in-law, my noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston, acted as an unpaid Minister of State in the previous Government. I am grateful that he did not look to his father-in-law to subsidise him, and that he managed to survive without doing so. But the fact is that it is all to do with the number of paid jobs there are in any Government and the reluctance of government to extend that number of jobs. It is a hard decision, I accept, but one that I have always been assured government is prepared to take.

The sooner the Government get on with it, the better. As has been pointed out by my noble friends, it is a complete iniquity that people should be asked to serve for nothing. As has been pointed out by my noble friend Lord Bethell, people often give up the job that they are very good at doing, and somebody less adequate takes over because they are prepared to do it for nothing. This is all completely wrong, and we should change it as soon as possible.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Parkinson, in his ever-ingenious way, has found a route to raise the question of ministerial salaries in the House of Lords. Having heard the strong feelings expressed, I think it is a matter that needs to be dealt with. There are a number of issues involved—as some touched on, there are matters in relation to pension and severance pay as well—but my noble friend’s amendment relates to salaries.

This is one of a number of issues—power of attorney, which we discussed earlier, being another—that the existence of the Bill has brought to the surface, and which go beyond the vexed and divisive issues of composition that are raised in the Bill and indeed in the Government’s manifesto. Surely if we can address any of these issues, for the good of the House, the Government or the country, we should find a way to do so.

Of course, Government Ministers in the House of Lords, whatever party is in office, should be paid. I give particular thought, although he is not here in his place, to people such as my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, a truly outstanding servant of this House and of his country who, because he was not able to attend the House in the conduct of his normal duties, lost out doubly as being unpaid and unable to claim an allowance.

Frankly, when I had the honour to be Leader of this House, I was deeply troubled by the fact that I had colleagues who were asked to work without pay. No one in any workplace would tolerate that as a decent way to carry on. The problem, as we have been told, arises from the interrelation between two 50 year-old statutes—we are often told that old law should be re-examined. Those are the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975, which limits the total number of paid Ministers to 109, and the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, which limits the number of Ministers in the House of Commons to 95. If the Commons takes up its allocation of 95 then the effective limit for paid Ministers in your Lordships’ House under the limit of 109 is just 14. That is clearly not enough. Between 1979 and 2019 the total number of Lords Ministers and Whips fluctuated between 21 and 27. There are further complications arising from overall limits on the numbers of Ministers of State.

The system needs review. When I was Leader of this House, I had discussions in the usual channels with other parties on this, and it was clear then that there was broad agreement that the injustice should be attended to—that it surely could not be right in the 21st century that you should need private means in order to serve as a Minister of the Crown. In saying that, I take nothing away from the high sense of public duty that led many noble Lords under successive Governments—including, I thought, some under this one—to undertake public service without reward.

When a number was given, the noble Baroness indicated that it was not true, but I had thought that there were some in this Government who were unpaid. Whether or not that is true, under any Government the self-sacrifice and public sense of duty of those people should be honoured, respected and remembered. However, it need not be for ever replicated, Government after Government. In the context of a reasonable settlement for the future of this House, as we go forward from this Bill, this matter might again be usefully discussed across party lines.

In March 2024, towards the end of the last Government, there were 14 Ministers and Whips in your Lordships’ House who were working unpaid. They included all six Ministers of State in this House, as the House of Commons wanted all paid posts then as Ministers of State for MPs. If that is not happening today under this Government, it will happen in due course as the demands on patronage grow. The unpaid Ministers included my noble friends Lord Howe, Lord Minto, Lord Camrose and Lord Roborough, whose public service now is to be requited by the current Bill as drafted by being expelled from Parliament. As we have heard, others had previously performed for nothing.

NATO Summit

Debate between Lord True and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, interoperability is obviously important—I agree with my noble friend on that, at least. When I made reference to Ukraine’s accession, I said that interoperability is important. What we face here is the most brutal and disgraceful challenge to the international order seen in modern times. More people have perished in that country than in any NATO country in the post-war era. I believe that we need to be absolutely solid in the face of the Russian Government. They must understand that no advantage or chink of gain will come from this aggression. I appeal to my noble friend to play his part in that.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, I am a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and I agree with him completely about the importance of the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that that is very important, not least because one of Putin’s excuses for invading Ukraine was that he did not want to see the expansion of NATO, but NATO has expanded as a result of his invasion, which will have caused him quite a bit of difficulty?

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, raised the issue of European defence. It is worth making the point that NATO is an alliance; it may well be defending Europe but it does not look mainly to EU members to do so. It is always well worth bearing in mind that, prior to the entry of Sweden and Finland, 80% of NATO’s expenditure came from countries outside it. Does my noble friend the Minister agree with Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of NATO, that the European initiatives to create a defence identity will inevitably lead to duplication and unnecessary expense?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with everything my noble friend said. Indeed, in an earlier answer I reported the specific comments that Secretary-General Stoltenberg made in relation to this question of the EU and NATO. It is fundamentally important that we are allies, but it is equally fundamentally important that nothing must be done that undermines or conflicts with NATO obligations and the central role, as my noble friend said, of NATO, involving the US and Canada, in this extraordinary commitment to the common defence of our continent.

EU: Future Relationship

Debate between Lord True and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, that argument was put in 2016 and has been put ever since, but in that time the UK has benefited from enormous inward investment and I have every confidence that it will continue to do so.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend’s Statement has exposed the speciousness of the argument that for some reason the UK should be treated as a special case because of our proximity to the European continent. Does he agree that this is actually an indication of the insecurity of the EU? It is a euphemism for saying that we should be punished for daring to leave the EU. This is not exactly a vote of confidence in the future of the EU.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am not going to be critical of the EU. As I have said, we respect its right to conduct itself as it wishes. I repeat: we certainly do not accept the proximity argument that requires that we should be in a customs union. It is not an argument that applies in North America, and I do not believe it applies on the European continent either.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Lord True and Lord Hamilton of Epsom

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 6th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I have the inside knowledge that the Labour Party wanted to abstain on this and that there was no way that the amendment would have been carried had tellers been put through by the Bill’s proposers.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I was not intending to intervene—