House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wrottesley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrottesley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an excepted hereditary Peer. I wish to expand on some of the themes in my contribution to the earlier debate on Lords reform. I stand here for the third time in a row on the graveyard shift. However, fortunately, this affords me the opportunity to be surrounded by the great and the good of this House, basking in their reflected glory. What a way to go.

It is exceptionally difficult to be novel at the back end of such a long and thorough debate, but the very strength of this debate is that common threads have been woven throughout it. In the previous debate and this one, it has been clear that many of your Lordships rightly have significant concerns with the reasoning behind bringing this specific Bill forward and in this form. At that time, I asked your Lordships to bring this back to first principles and consider what the purpose of this House is to be. Are we to hold the Government to account as part of an effective process of checks and balances, at the same time able to scrutinise legislation in more detail and with more diligence than the other place can?

If one of the aims of this House is to hold the Executive, led by the Prime Minister, to account, having a wholly elected second Chamber that reflects the composition of the other place would hand the power of this House wholly to that very Executive, headed by the Prime Minister. That is not check and balance. In much the same way, if the House is wholly or partly appointed by the Prime Minister, that hands power over it back to the political patronage of the Prime Minister. That is not check and balance.

We see direct parallels with these issues in the US system, where, if the President, as will be the case with President Trump, has control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and effective control of the judiciary in the form of the Supreme Court, as well as a politicised civil service, he will have untrammelled and unfettered power, without effective check and balance. That is a heady and highly attractive mix for any leader to contemplate.

The only way to ensure that the second Chamber is able to carry out an effective check and balance on the Executive is, in my view, to have a substantially appointed House, with an elected element but—this is crucial—one free from the untrammelled power of political patronage of the Prime Minister. Decisions on its membership would be vested in an appointments commission with the power to appoint, free from political influence—in short, a House of Lords appointments commission, but this time with teeth. In addition, in order to preserve deep corporate memory, term limits should not be less than 25 years, subject to five-year reviews to ensure that all appointees are carrying their weight through attendance and contribution. Why 25 years? Quite simply, that is the accepted length of a generation, and quite enough time for someone to give effectively and fully to the House.

Composition of the House should be structured according to a weighted average of the composition of the parties in the other place over that same period. In short, if you are in government for longer, you will have more Peers appointed. “But hang on a minute”, I hear your Lordships thinking, “Isn’t that what already happens?” The only difference is that most of your Lordships propose that these appointments should not be dependent on the Prime Minister’s political patronage.

Unfortunately, this is what His Majesty’s Government seems to be trying to engineer by getting rid of a large part of their opposition from right across the House—and, we have to assume, as no alternative has been offered, filling in the gaps created with their own appointees. By summarily dismissing 90 hereditaries in one fell swoop, mid-term, as well as the expressed intention to impose a retirement age, this is ungracious, and creates a huge void that we assume the Government will want to fill. The concern of many of your Lordships is that this would be done with people appointed by the Prime Minister—deeply ironic, as this would rely on the very patronage that the Government will, we are told, seek to prevent with any supposed further reform of the House.

My question of this House is: why are we doing this to these active, committed Peers who make a valuable contribution to the House, rather than weeding out those who hardly come? Is there not an easier way of working, cross-party, to reduce the size of the House, rather than expelling some of the most active and senior Peers? If I may be so bold, as one of the younger—at the age of over 50, that is difficult to say—and more recent entrants to the House, to offer some advice to the Leader of the House. In the spirit of good will, particularly in this festive season, please do not treat your Lordships as if they are turkeys voting for Christmas; it is much easier if you consider them as wise men, and occasionally women, and then encourage them to vote for Christmas. You will likely get a somewhat different response.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Wrottesley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrottesley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an excepted hereditary Peer who already suffered the fate of expulsion from this House in 1999.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of my fellow hereditaries—although I think that we are broad-minded enough to agree—and at the risk of agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and the Labour Party manifesto, in my view the principle of heredity is indefensible. However, what I am afraid I do not agree with, as many of your Lordships do not, is the “incremental” change that the Leader of the House described. It seems that many of your Lordships feel that this sort of change is politically motivated.

We have heard comments that it is clumsy, heavy-handed, cruel and unkind in not recognising the valuable contribution that existing hereditaries make and should continue to make. We have also heard that it is not what was agreed by the previous Labour Government 25 years ago: that removing the remaining hereditaries would not be done incrementally. What was, in effect, agreed by large majorities in both Houses in 1999 was that it would not be done until a complete alternative had been agreed on.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, went on to say that the nation is not interested in what we are debating today. First of all, nor is the nation interested in much of the business that your Lordships carry out, but nevertheless we do that unglamorous work because it has to be done, and we do it in more detail and with more diligence because the other place cannot. One thing I can say with certainty is that there is not the fascination across the nation that the party opposite has with wholesale reform of this House. I heard a parliamentary colleague comment to me just today that in his whole career he had knocked on over 60,000 doors, and not once was House of Lords reform mentioned.

The Labour manifesto also went on to say, as was reiterated by the Leader in her opening statement, that:

“Labour will consult on proposals, seeking the input of the British public on how politics can best serve them”.


Many of your Lordships are deeply troubled that there has not been any consultation on the Bill now before Parliament, and that it has effectively been signed, sealed and delivered in the other place.

I will use this opportunity to try and take this all back to first principles: what is the House of Lords for? Does the nation want your Lordships to carry on the principle that has been built up over centuries, in a way that can happen only in a nation that relies on a constitution founded on convention and common law? Does it want the House to be a Chamber, often free of political bias, to review and revise legislation passed to it by the Government and the other place? That is effective check and balance, the cornerstone of democratic structures.

I now turn to the process of change and how should one go about managing change, and offer just a couple of observations. Here I turn to the corporate world and governance in public bodies. Boards are convened according to a skills matrix. In my view, that is how a second Chamber should be constituted, through a properly established and empowered appointments commission, free from political influence. However, with a board of effectively 600 people, far deeper and broader expertise can be sought, and to address the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and other noble Lords’ suggestions around term limits, I suggest that any limits should take into account a desire not to lose deep corporate memory, something that besets every corporate and public board.

Then, as many of your Lordships have also addressed, we have to look at how that body is constituted: elected or appointed? Many of your Lordships have grave concerns that having another elected and therefore politicised Chamber will lead only to further short-termism at the heart of our legislative process. The other advantage that this House has in a long-term appointment—in this case, life—is the ability to think long-term, also bringing with it a lifetime’s experience and deep expertise. We could also opt for a hybrid Chamber, part elected and part appointed, to enable deep knowledge and experience to be woven into what might otherwise be highly politicised decision-making. The issue then is what transitional arrangements would need to be undertaken.

I conclude by echoing what many other noble Lords have said: that when brought before this House, it will be the wrong Bill for the wrong time. We need more time to analyse what the nation actually wants. I respectfully request that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House takes back to her colleagues in Cabinet these and other concerns that your Lordships have brought before this House in this often lively but deeply informative debate.