House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, like many who have spoken in the debate this afternoon, I was delighted to hear the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Brady and saddened to hear the valedictory speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin.

We are Peers; we are all Peers. The word means equal and that is how we speak, behave and vote, and that is how we are treated in this House. There is no rank; we are equals as Peers. That should be held at the front of our minds throughout this debate. I certainly do not intend to follow the noble Lord, Lord Newby, down the line which he advanced in his speech, which I felt was uncharacteristically trying to be a little divisive between hereditary Peers and appointed life Peers. In fact, I think the reverse is true: in my third of a century or so in this House, I cannot think of a single instance where a Member’s rationale and motivation for the way that they speak or intervene has been questioned on the grounds of what type of Peer they are. They are a Peer; that is how they speak and that is how they behave, and I think that is how it should continue.

My second point is that our routes into this House—unless we seriously consider elections, and I think we should—are really, for the purposes of this debate, a giant red herring. The reality is that all Peers in this House are now de facto life Peers. The hereditary element has now gone. The hereditary principle, with the abolition of the by-elections, really is a non-issue. We have to look at numbers, composition and performance of the House, but I think to produce the hereditary issue as a great dragon that needs to be slain now is a very strange concept indeed and one that I do not think people outside Westminster would recognise as any sort of a priority.

Just take my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, for example, with his service as a Whip, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Minister of State, Opposition Chief Whip, Opposition Leader, Leader of the House, and no doubt a whole lot of roles that I have forgotten about over that time of nearly 40 years or so. Would anyone in the Chamber this afternoon seriously say that their own experience was superior to his on the grounds that he came to this House through a hereditary peerage some 38 years ago and they came as a prime ministerial appointment? I am prepared to take an intervention if anyone feels that they should.

Why have we got this Bill? I am very tempted to say that we should join together the three measures that have taken up so much time in this House recently: the debate on farming—the attacks on farmers and the settlement there that we have heard so much about, and will do again tomorrow—VAT on private schools, and the attacks on hereditary peerages. They could all be bundled together as a unified blood-letting Bill. Let us be honest and transparent about why this is being done.

I was most taken by the powerful speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who is not in his place at the moment. He has done so much in the field of constitutional reform and was ready to mount his charger and draw his trusty sword of truth to fight the non-existent battle with the forces of heredity. He concluded by saying that he preferred the patronage of the Prime Minister. I am not sure that that conclusion was more than a modest bombshell. Unless and until we tackle the frankly preposterous system whereby the Prime Minister appoints his own jurors with no binding numbers, we are just tinkering at the edges of this issue. In my view, we ought to have a serious debate and move ahead with full constitutional reform, and leave this Bill to one side.