House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Astor Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, it is a certain pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, because when he first came to this House, he did not sit on the Labour Benches but was on this side of the House. He has played a very successful game of musical chairs around the House in a clockwise motion, going from here to the Cross Benches to the Labour Party. With his ability to do that, after the Bill has passed he will probably pop up on the Bishops’ Bench.

The Bill is notable not for what is in it but for what is not in it. It is a Bill of missed opportunities to reform this House. It does not represent the Government’s own manifesto. Our fear is that there will be no further reform or follow-up of Gordon Brown’s idea for a Chamber that will be fit for the future, representing all the nations of this country. As drafted, it is an opportunity for this Government to enable the Prime Minister to pay off friends and donors. More Prime Ministers’ bag carriers will receive peerages, sadly, following the example of the last two Conservative Prime Ministers. I hope that noble Lords note that I said “two”— I absolve my noble friend Lord Cameron of any such behaviour.

In the recent debate we had on reform, the Leader of the House did not tell us what she believes the future of this House will be or even what options the Government are considering. However, looking at the amendments that were laid in the Commons, we have the opportunity to prise out the Government’s thinking on the future of the second Chamber. The Labour Party’s general election manifesto committed to removing the right of excepted hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this Chamber. The commitment was made alongside other proposals to reform the House of Lords. The manifesto proposed the introduction of a “mandatory retirement age” that would require Members to retire from the House of Lords at the end of the Parliament in which they reached the age of 80. It also proposed establishing

“a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”,

reforming

“the appointments process to ensure the quality of new appointments”,

and seeking

“to improve the national and regional balance”.

The Labour manifesto also proposed

“replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.

Finally, it said that the Government would consult on these proposals. When will they start consulting? Who will they consult? We want to know what the Government’s view is on retirement age and length of service. Is 80 going to be the retirement age? If so, why did the Prime Minister appoint two new Peers to this House who are already over 80? It was somewhat surprising.

A lot of us do not want to get rid of the Bishops or disestablish the Church of England, but after looking at the debates in another place we should consider looking at other faiths taking part in Prayers in this House. On Remembrance Sunday, all the denominations were included. I looked up the list: the Chief Rabbi, the director of the Sikh Network, representatives from the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the United Reform Church, the Baptist Union, unitarian churches, Greek Orthodox churches and the Church of Scotland, and Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist representatives. If they can attend that important service, why can they not attend Prayers in your Lordships’ House?

Do the Government believe that in the future, large donors or those who represent large donors should be excluded from consideration for peerages? Should there be a participation threshold? I note, as other noble Lords have, that in the previous Session, the largest vote was 515 Peers and the largest in recent years was just over 600, on the European withdrawal Bill. That was out of a possible 805. However, if we exclude some who are unable to attend due to illness or not being in the country, that leaves about 200 further Members of your Lordships’ House who could have attended. Where were they? If the Government really want to cut down the size of the Chamber, they should identify those who do not attend, and those Peers should retire. It is also noticeable that 53 of your Lordships have not spoken in the last five years. Do they really deserve to carry on taking part in your Lordships’ House without making more of an effort to attend?

There will be amendments to the Bill. They will not be, as some have claimed, a delaying tactic but a chance to discuss the issues around reform. I recognise that the Bill is a manifesto commitment and that at the end of the day it must pass, although not without proper scrutiny. To those who object to the scrutiny ahead of us, in Committee and on Report, all I can say is that if we do not properly scrutinise the Bill, what is the point in having a second Chamber at all? If this happens, the danger is that since most MPs already do not see the point of a second Chamber, their preferred reform will be a unicameral Parliament. That would be a terrible mistake and an unintended consequence of a bad Bill.

House of Lords Reform

Viscount Astor Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder how many times over the last century a noble Lord has started a speech by saying, “Reform of this Chamber is long overdue”, and how many times the Government Minister of the day has positively responded but the Government have then done little to implement any serious changes.

We will hear this evening from the Leader of the House about the proposed demise of the last remaining hereditary Peers. To be fair to the Labour Government, the Blair Government enacted a major change with the cull of hereditary Peers in 1999, leading to what was described as a transition period. Well, transition has lasted rather longer than intended, and that is the fault of not the hereditary Peers but the Labour and Conservative Governments.

Sadly, rather than serious reform, we will be offered a House that will be dependent on the whim and patronage of the Prime Minister. We all agree that there are too many Peers, but the Government have not come up with a solution. Has a retirement age of 80 been ditched, or a length of service of, say, 35 years? We do not know: the Government have not told us.

What is really important is that the Government had the opportunity to endorse the proposals put forward by Gordon Brown but quickly backed off, preferring to use this House as a repository for former Members of another place and those to whom it owes favours, following, I am afraid, the example of the last two Conservative Prime Ministers—I hope noble Lords remember that I said two, because I absolve my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton of any such behaviour.

The Brown plans offered a real reform. Following devolution, it is not sustainable to have a second Chamber that does not relate to and properly reflect the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We cannot have a second Chamber that relates largely to England—it should bring together the regions and nations of this country. We cannot have a second Chamber that does not include representatives of other faiths. Prayers should be said not just by the Bishops but by those representing other faiths.

A second Chamber could be constituted by election or, indeed, appointment. We need to look at what size any new Chamber should be, but that is a subsidiary question to what its role and powers should be. I follow my noble friend Lord Wakeham in saying that a constitutional convention should be put in place to look at all these issues, including how a reformed second Chamber relates in its powers to the primacy of the House of Commons. It is important to remember that without a second Chamber a Government can keep voting themselves into office.

It is often said that this House works in spite of its composition rather than because of it—that is true. I believe that the House of Lords is well regarded in this country as an important revising Chamber holding the Government to account. Any reform must ensure that that remains a core part of the House’s duty.

My time may be up in a year, so I want to address just a couple of points that have been made by noble Lords opposite. One of the main arguments against hereditary Peers is that no women are represented among our number. The fault for that lies just as much with the Government as it does with our side. The Labour Party, while in opposition or in government, has never supported any Bill that would give the right to the firstborn to succeed to a title. If it had, there would be many more mixed Members of the hereditary peerage.

The Government owe a duty to this House and to the country to announce what reforms they are considering, what reforms they now wish to impose, and what the timetable will be.

In the 50 years that I have sat in this House, it has changed. All ethnic communities are represented; nearly all religious denominations are represented, and noble Lords come from different parts of this country and from many different backgrounds. We have had in our ranks those who have been to jail, and perhaps a few who should have gone to jail. We are perhaps more representative of the nation than we ever realise.

Over the years, I have heard many good speeches from those who attend frequently and those who attend infrequently, and, occasionally, very bad speeches from those who attend all the time and never stop speaking. This House has a tendency to be pompous and often self-congratulatory. We often hear long speeches on foreign policy or important issues of the day, but I am afraid that our debates work only when they are narrowly focused. Too often, wide-ranging debates are for the benefit of the speaker and not the audience. I hope I have not fallen into that trap today.