House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, the Labour manifesto said that

“we will introduce a new participation requirement”.

My Amendment 26, in the next group, deals specifically with the very small number of Peers who turn up and then do nothing.

The Government keep complaining that many amendments to this Bill have nothing to do with the removal of hereditary Peers, saying that the Bill is narrowly focused. That is true, but it was a political decision by the Government to make it so narrow and not include the other priority issues from their manifesto. The Government are seeking to give the impression that dealing only with hereditary Peers is somehow sacrosanct or ordained from on high. If we were in the Moses Room right now, I would be looking at the tablets that he brought down from Sinai to see if there was an 11th commandment saying, “Thou shalt have no other provisions in thy Bill except the removal of hereditary Peers”. Governments often widen the scope of Bills and adjust the Long Title. Indeed, today in the other place the Government have tabled Amendments 262 and 263, which will amend the Long Title to the Employment Rights Bill. They could do so for this one also if they were so minded.

With these amendments, I am seeking to explore the possibility of retiring Peers who have attended few of our sittings. Let me make it crystal clear that I reject the idea of a full-time House of political professionals. The great strength of this revising Chamber is that, with a very wide range of expertise to call on, most noble Lords do not sit here all the time intervening on issues that are not their speciality, but participate in our debates and Select Committees on issues on which they are expert.

I recall a debate on an amendment to the precision breeding Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was debating a point with the noble Lord, Lord Winston, concerning recombinant DNA—whatever that is. The rest of us sat there watching a very civilised ping-pong match, and they were the only two in the whole Chamber who knew what they were talking about. Indeed, when my noble friend the Minister wound up, he said that neither he nor his officials in the Box knew anything about the subject, either, and would both noble Lords come to the department and explain it to them? That is one tiny example of the superb strengths of this House—that is the House of Lords in action. For the record, both noble Lords had attendances in the last Parliament well above 30% and 40%.

I turn once again to the Excel spreadsheets produced by the Library, which have the attendance record for all Peers in the last Parliament. There may be some names missing and there are other little technical errors; however, these figures are not the full picture, since the attendance data is based on contributions made in the Chamber and Grand Committee and does not include participation in other committee meetings. The Library tells me:

“This is because of the way in which different types of data are stored in the House of Lords’ internal systems and the challenges in extracting it to provide a dataset which we can be confident is accurate for all members and across the full duration of the Parliament, unlike chamber contributions which we can be sure is robust. We are actively looking at ways of incorporating committee attendance into this analysis and hope to resolve this in future releases, conscious that we want to present as comprehensive a picture as possible.”


Nor do the attendance figures count all the days that Ministers are working away from the Lords in their departments, or abroad. Nor do they include the 25 days per annum when 23 Members of this House are away serving at the Council of Europe, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the OSCE.

With those caveats, the figures are nevertheless accurate enough for us to debate the concept of retiring Peers below certain attendance thresholds, and they give us a fairly good picture of attendance. If we retired Peers who attended fewer than 20% of possible sitting days in the previous Parliament, that would be 154 Peers. What does 20% mean in actual sitting days? Over the past 10 years—I have done the number-crunching myself —the number of sitting days has averaged 148.1 per annum. That ranged from just 15 days in 2019 to 350 during the 2017-19 Session; thus, an annual average is more accurate than a sessional average. Peers who attended 20% of the time therefore attended for just 30 days out of 148. Peers who attended 15% of the time attended 22 days out of 148, and those who attended just 10% of the time were present here for just 15 days.

If noble Lords access the spreadsheet, they can come to their own conclusions on whether the occasions on which some of those 154 Peers spoke or participated merit continuance in this House. I have seen a few names who made worthwhile speeches, but my recollection is that the vast majority of the 154 Peers in this category have not contributed much to the work of this House. Those who attended fewer than 15% of possible sittings number 118 Peers. When I look at the 10% and below—the 70 Peers who turned up for a maximum of 15 days per annum—I cannot see, in my opinion, any whose contribution was so essential or vital that we should retain their presence in this House for their very rare words of wisdom. Indeed, I can recall only three of them making any speech, and none has served on any of our committees.

This is not one of my amendments, but if we opted for removing those who have attended 5% or less of the time, that would be just 39 Peers. My noble friend Lord Hailsham has suggested a 1% threshold, but that is 12 Peers and, in my opinion, it would make us look a bit silly if we went that low. However, I agree with his other amendments: of course we must exempt those on leave of absence—but not for too long—or those with royal duties, such as the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, or the new Lord Chamberlain, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon.

These figures are out by about eight because of judicial appointments and some deaths since the Library compiled them last year, but noble Lords can see the ballpark figure—if that American term is still acceptable. Noble Lords may say, “What does it matter if they don’t turn up? They are not getting any allowance and not costing anything”. I agree with that view, but we are here today because the Government say that there are too many Peers, and the Government’s solution is to get rid of 88 hereditaries, many of whom are assiduous attenders. Indeed, there are only 14 hereditaries who have attended less than 20% of sittings.

I do not have a firm view on my options, but I think that noble Lords would consider the 20% or 15% thresholds to be on the high side and a bridge too far to begin with. When noble Lords look at the names of the 70 who would be retired for an attendance figure of fewer than 15 days per annum, I think we might have some consensus around that, with the necessary exemptions suggested by my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

Now, where this gets really interesting is if one combines an age cut-off and an attendance cut-off. The Excel spreadsheet gives some interesting figures. I will not waste time by running through the extremes: at one end, a retirement age of 90 and an attendance of just 1% would retire 89 Peers; at the other, retirement at 80 and a 20% attendance cut-off would retire 420 Peers, which I think would be a tad excessive. 

The more sensible criteria might be a retirement age of 85 and an attendance of 10%; that would retire 304 Peers by 2029. A retirement age of 85 and an attendance of 5% would retire 213 Peers. I suggest that that figure is on the edge of a possible solution, reducing our numbers to those who turn up, take part and are not perceived from outside as too old to do the job.

I have a couple of final points on attendance. I think that it has to be retrospective and based on attendance in the previous Parliament. That is highly contentious, but if we introduced, say, a 10% threshold for about 15 days in future, we would have some colleagues counting their attendance and rushing in to attend for a few days at the end of the year just to get over the threshold. We would also need some special appeal mechanism—a committee to which Peers could appeal if they felt that they were being wrongly excluded. I will say more about that when we debate Amendment 26. 

I appreciate that this is contentious and goes against the precedents we have had for centuries. But I come back to my starting point that retirement of those who turn up infrequently and say little is infinitely preferable to throwing out all hereditaries, over 70 of whom who turn up regularly and participate fully in the work of this House. 

Of course, if we were to go down this route in future, we would need complete and accurate figures for attendance in the Chamber, the Grand Committee and all our committees, as well as on Ministers and shadow Cabinet Ministers working away from the precincts of this building and those Peers on foreign delegations. 

In conclusion, I look forward to the unanimous support of my noble friends, and I beg to move.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I rise very briefly to speak to the four amendments in my name, Amendments 22 to 25. The first three would amend the lead amendment, Amendment 19, moved by my noble friend. For reasons that I shall come to shortly, I very strongly disagree with it.

First, I express some cautious agreement with my noble friend as regards future participation. My noble friend Lord Blencathra has urged the case for requiring a future minimum degree of engagement as a condition of membership of this House, and there is clearly a case for that. My own Amendment 25 suggests a participation record of 10%. However, I would be a bit cautious about setting too high a requirement; first, because occasional interventions from those who are not regular attenders can be very valuable, sometimes on esoteric subjects, although not exclusively so.

Moreover, and more generally, there is a danger that too demanding a requirement could encourage interventions for the purpose of meeting the criteria from those who are not currently great participators. We all know that speeches in major debates are time-limited, and very often the time available is very short. The question that arises is: do we want to make a more restrictive timetable? I think not, but that could well be a consequence of an increased participation requirement. As my noble friend touched on, there needs to be a degree of flexibility with regard to minimum requirements. Members may very well have good reasons for not participating: illness, leave of absence, overseas commitments, family problems and so forth. My suggestions in Amendments 22, 24 and 25 are designed to address these problems.

Where I actively and positively disagree with my noble friend is in his Amendment 19 and his related Amendments 20 and 21. Your Lordships will have noticed that those amendments relate to the 2019-24 Session. That is retrospective in character, and my noble friend is suggesting that if a Member fails to satisfy the stated participation level in the past Parliament, he must retire.

I am against retrospective requirements or sanctions. My noble friend’s proposal is just that. It imposes a penalty which is entirely retrospective in character, in respect of a failure to meet a requirement which did not exist at the relevant time. I regard that as a thoroughly objectionable proposition and I very much hope that this Committee will not go down that road.

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Moved by

[Viscount Hailsham]

27: In subsection (1) after “if” insert “, not having been granted leave of absence and in the absence of other good reason,”

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, my amendment is very technical. It provides simply that the sanction should not apply if the Member has good reason for not participating.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 63 in this group. If we can help the Front Bench with musical lyrics, it is surely:

“Oh what a circus, oh what a show”.


I declare my interest as a so-called hereditary Peer. I will make two general points before I turn to the detail of my amendment.

First, as earlier speeches from right across the House have made clear, it is accepted that the hereditary principle is no longer suitable and that the suspension of by-elections should become permanent. The Bill achieves that, full stop—a piece of punctuation that seems to have taken on unparalleled significance in our debates on this Bill.

Secondly, on Monday some noble Lords stated either on their feet or in not very sotto voce sedentary mutterings that all amendments are irrelevant, because this is a single-objective Bill. While I understand that view and share the intense frustration with the speed of the debate, some of the degrouping and the gratuitous rudeness to the Leader of the House, particularly on the first day, I nevertheless understand that amendments have been put down and marshalled in the usual way. Most are probing and, while they may seek to go beyond the tight circumference of the current text of the Bill, I am not sure that they can simply be dismissed as irrelevant. Such amendments have arisen because there is a widely expressed concern that, once the expulsion of the hereditaries is done, all further reform will again grind to a halt and the House will sink quietly back into a pattern of prime ministerial patronage and ever-growing size, neither of which enhance its reputation or credibility.

My amendment does not seek to obstruct the purpose of the Bill, but it does invite the Government to take some practical steps to enable the further reform to which their manifesto commits them. Amendment 63, like some others, addresses the issue of participation, but not by prescribing in advance and in detail exactly what such reform should comprise—rather, by seeking simply to put in place a process and timeline to progress it, something that speaker after speaker has been calling for over the days of this debate. It is thus complementary to the single purpose of the Bill and could be added to it without obstructing that purpose in any way.

The focus of this amendment is participation, for the following reasons. First, it is a Member’s participation and contributions, be they aged 91 or 21, that most affect both the quality and the reputation of this House. To touch briefly on a related point of age limits, I understand the convincing argument for imposing an age limit as a matter of public perception, and a wide range of dates was suggested in the debate on Monday and examples given of very competent individuals who would be lost at each gradation. I am not against an age limit, but what the debate on Monday actually highlighted was the inability of Whips to require Members to retire when—and there is no point tiptoeing around this—participation in the work of the House has become too challenging for them. Maybe that is the problem that needs to be addressed.

Secondly, a participation requirement is a commitment that needs to be transformed from a manifesto statement to an implementable set of actions. Finally, and I apologise for introducing a personal note, it does rather sting to be dismissed en bloc but leave behind some Peers—and there is no shortage—who do not attend, or who attend, claim their allowances and then do not participate.

The amendment has three key features. First, it requires, within six months of the Bill becoming an Act, that a cross-party group be set up to consult, to define participation and to establish suitable metrics to measure it. I have been told that defining participation is too difficult. It is not. The “too difficult” mantra has been given as an excuse for far too long. No doubt a range of views will be contributed to the cross-party group, as other amendments in this group illustrate, and account should be taken of previous work in this area. This amendment embraces both those factors. We already collect most of the necessary data, but previous Governments have, I am afraid to say, simply lacked the firmness of purpose to act on it.

This brings me to the amendment’s second feature: it enables the setting up of the processes required to implement the participation requirement as a basis for continued membership. Not all aspects of the outcome will please everyone completely, but we need to move beyond the wringing of hands and the gnashing of gums in order to resolve the participation gap in a practical way.

Some time ago we had the excellent Burns report, which made recommendations that Members across the House supported, but these have not been implemented. Other speakers on Monday recited a long list of failures to implement change. We need to do better. That is why the third and final feature of this amendment is to require the Government to bring forward measures to ensure that the findings are implemented. While the amendment as drafted anticipates the Government getting a grip on this, the House might itself, if it has the powers to do so, take responsibility for setting up the group, ensuring its work is done and carrying it forward to implementation. That is certainly worthy of consideration, so long as it does not become yet another consultation that, in the best traditions of Sir Humphrey, in “Yes Minister”, simply delays and dissolves what actually needs to be done.

In conclusion, this amendment does not—and I underline this—seek in any way to thwart the single-minded purpose of the Bill. It does not prescribe how participation should be defined, quantified or implemented, but it does put in place a process and a timeframe of 20 months for reform, based on participation, once the Bill is passed. For a Government who are serious about reforming this House, it is an opportunity to address its size, effectiveness, cost and reputation—all things that most Members agree are not currently what they should be. I therefore hope that the Minister will seize on this amendment, both as a means to move forward with the Bill and to demonstrate in practical terms the Government’s absolute commitment to resolving the participation issue: not in a general, aspirational sense, or as something that, in a phrase heard earlier in the debate, “we are working on”, but with a structure and a timetable so that the House can both understand and benefit from long-overdue change. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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Moved by

[Viscount Hailsham]

30: After “indictment” insert “and who has received an immediate custodial sentence or a suspended sentence of more than six months”

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I think the Committee would agree that disqualification from membership of this House should follow only a serious conviction. My suggestion is that a better indicator of the gravity of the conviction lies in the sentence rather than simply in the fact of conviction. That is why I have tabled an amendment whereby disqualification should follow the imposition of an immediate custodial sentence or a suspended sentence of at least six months. I suggest that that is a better mark of the gravity of the offence than simply the fact of a conviction, albeit on indictment.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I want to make sure that in this debate we do not forget the case of our late noble friend, Lord Montague of Beaulieu, who was imprisoned for 12 months for homosexual acts and would have fallen foul of my noble friend’s amendment, even as amended by my noble friend Lord Hailsham. He was charged under the same Act of Parliament as Oscar Wilde and many other gay men. The Montague case of 1954 gave direct rise to the Wolfenden report of 1957 and the decriminalisation of homosexuality 10 years later—a campaign led in your Lordships’ House, incidentally, by a Conservative hereditary Peer, the eighth Earl Arran, following the sad suicide of his brother.

On his release from prison, Lord Montague of Beaulieu returned to your Lordships’ House and remained an active and greatly esteemed Member, as well as highly engaged in civic life. He chaired the Historic Houses Association and English Heritage. He was elected to remain in your Lordships’ House in 1999 and announced his plans to retire only in 2015, the year that he died. So, while I agree with the sentiment that lawmakers should not be lawbreakers, it is important to remember that what constitutes a criminal offence is a question for legislation, and I for one am glad that the late Lord Montague was able to remain a legislator.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, we have spent 15 minutes on this, so I hope we will not be accused of filibustering in this small but rather important debate. I take on board the complexities that my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie and the Minister have described. Nevertheless, it has been a worthwhile debate.

There has been a surprising amount of consensus over the deprivation of titles. If one can take away a knighthood, it should be possible, in very controlled circumstances, to take away the title of Peer. It is a matter for this House in conjunction with the Commons, because the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 said that a Joint Committee of privy counsellors from both Houses should look at peerages and decide who had aided the enemy. If we had removal for serious offences, however we determine “serious”, again, it would be determined by a committee of privy counsellors from both Houses. And it would not be automatic; we would not be looking back at someone like Lord Montague and automatically doing it. The committee would determine whether the seriousness of the offence, whether in the last few years or further back, was worth taking forward. It would not be an automatic removal of title.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 30 (to Amendment 29) withdrawn.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, this country is being slowly but inexorably paralysed by committees of all shapes and sizes—departmental public bodies, quangos, you name it. New ones are being created on a regular basis, and every single one of them—new and old—is doing its best to expand its remit, thereby increasing its power and, frequently, its budget. The result, more often than not, is that Ministers are unable to take decisions. They are obliged to seek advice from this committee or that. If something goes wrong, however, it is the Minister who is held responsible and has to take the blame, while these unelected bodies, populated by the people who know best, remain unaccountable. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to consult the Office for Budget Responsibility, an organisation that gets things wrong more often than right. What is wrong with our own vast department, the Treasury—or even the Bank of England, which has been known to get things wrong? When it comes to misjudgments, it is but a rank amateur compared with the OBR.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to one organisation that could be got rid of with no loss: the House of Lords Appointments Commission—HOLAC. It is a non-departmental public body. If His Majesty the King wishes, on the advice of the Prime Minister, to appoint someone to the House of Lords, what is the commission needed for, when exactly the same advice that the commission calls on to take its decision is available to the Prime Minister? Why does this advice need to be filtered through a separate body? What is the point of having an organisation to collate information from government departments to present it to the Prime Minister?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

One reason is that we do not always trust the Prime Minister.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

He can already get this information.

I regret having to say this, but on more than one occasion HOLAC has taken a decision, or made a recommendation, that has been biased by a political view and not as an arm’s-length appraisal, resulting in the rejection of candidates of the highest calibre. That is not what the commission should be doing. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration, will stop HOLAC going beyond the bounds of what it should be doing.

At this very time, this Chamber is coming under increasing scrutiny. We need to welcome into our ranks individuals of talent, vision and extraordinary achievement. I strongly believe that HOLAC is a hindrance to this process and is damaging the future health and viability of the House of Lords. I beg to move.

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[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, in this grouping, there are two connected proposals in my name. Amendment 43 would not prevent political patronage creating non-parliamentary peerages.

Yet it would abolish the right of parliamentary political patronage to appoint Members to this House, replacing that practice, as advocated by Amendment 45, with a statutory appointments commission responsible for appointing 200 independent Cross-Benchers within a reformed House of 600 temporal Members, where the balance of 400 Members are political Members indirectly elected by an electoral college representative of the different parts of the United Kingdom.

These amendments also indicate three background considerations. The first is how thereby, in appointing 200 non-political independent Members, the new statutory commission appoints the largest group within a reformed House of 600. The second is the purpose of doing that and, thirdly, how membership, within a total of 20 appointment commissioners, reflects the proportions of different Benches sitting in a reformed House.

Among the 400 political and temporal Members, the Government and the Opposition would have exactly 150 each, while all other political parties, including the Liberal Democrats, would have 100. With 200, the independent Cross Benches, therefore, would have 50 more Members than either the Government or the Opposition.

The purpose of this is not House of Lords composition; instead, it is continuity of House of Lords quality function. So many of your Lordships have eloquently stressed that point today, including the noble Lord, Lord Moore, and my noble friends Lord Tugendhat and Lady Laing. This quality function is not just our current high standard of legislative scrutiny. As my noble friend Lord Attlee pointed out, it includes our achievements in revisions, and thus also the quality of that evidence. This quality of function would be undermined if the party of any Government having a majority in another place also had one here. That is why the Government and the Opposition ought to have equal numbers in a reformed House, while the non-political Cross-Benchers should be in the majority.

With a total of 20 commissioners appointing 200 non-political Members, subsection (5) of the new clause that would be inserted by Amendment 45 gives the ratios allocated to the different temporal Benches: five commissioners each for the Government and the Opposition; seven for the Cross-Benchers; and three for the Liberal Democrats as the third-largest temporal group. Amendment 46, referring to that subsection (5) in Amendment 45, proposes the additional words,

“or from a party-political group in the House of Lords not otherwise identified in this table”,

for which I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hailsham.

I also thank my noble friend for the qualification in his Amendment 44A, referring to Amendment 43, that with appointments to this House the statutory Appointments Commission can only select people who are properly reliable and independent-minded. In addition, I am grateful to him and to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for their proposed Amendments 47 and 12 respectively, envisaging that, in the period of time before a statutory Appointments Commission has replaced political patronage, life peerages can still not be conferred against the recommendations of HOLAC or the present non-statutory Appointments Commission.

In Amendment 51, the strengthening of HOLAC is also urged by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, who has just spoken to that, supported by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. As outlined, the aim should be for HOLAC to become statutory, replacing political patronage and appointing one-third or 200 non-political Members of a reformed House, temporal membership being 600 of which 400 are political Members. As a revising Chamber, this arrangement is best able to protect our present very high standard of legislative scrutiny to the advantage of the United Kingdom democracy here and, by example, to that of national democracies elsewhere.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I very much endorse what my noble friend Lord Dundee has been saying, and what he has said has enabled me—your Lordships will be pleased to know—to abbreviate my remarks very significantly. I have put down four amendments, to which I want to say something briefly: namely, Amendments 43, 44A, 46 and 47. I shall also comment briefly on Amendment 45.

So far as Amendment 43 is concerned, I agree very much, for the reasons advanced by my noble friend Lord Dundee, that HOLAC should be the sole source of recommendations for appointments. In substance, there is too great a risk that individuals will be appointed by a party or Prime Minister in circumstances that will offend the public sense as to what is appropriate. Unfettered discretion on the part of a Prime Minister raises serious questions as to suitability and propriety of additional appointments. That risk will be diminished by giving the right of nomination to HOLAC.

In response to the point made by my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, the truth is that the decisions of Prime Ministers cannot always be trusted, and we have seen some pretty rum events over the last few years which give force to that conclusion. I prefer the approach set out in the amendment which my noble friend Lord Dundee has moved to the negative approach suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Newby—I think he himself would accept that his amendment does not go far enough.

That takes me to Amendment 45, which puts HOLAC on a statutory basis. I think that it is highly desirable that the existence, composition, role and powers of HOLAC should be enshrined in statute. I have come to this conclusion very much for the reasons advanced by the noble Earl and for the reasons that were advanced by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde in the debate of last Monday. It is very important that the powers and role of HOLAC should be statutory. There is a very good model for this. It is in a Bill which was introduced in the 2022-23 Session by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and it may well be that he is going to repeat those points in the debate on Friday when he has a Bill before your Lordships’ House.

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[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 45 and the other amendments in this group that would make HOLAC a statutory body. I was a member of the commission for a number of years and, despite the fact that I hold the proposers of these amendments in very high regard, it would be a great mistake to put it on a statutory basis. I say so for the same reason as that given by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, a distinguished former chairman of the commission, to your Lordships on 18 November 2022.

In a nutshell, making HOLAC a statutory body would make it subject to judicial review. This would mean that someone who was unsuccessful in their application to become a Member of your Lordships’ House could challenge that decision in the courts. It would mean that an appointment that had been announced and, indeed, confirmed could be challenged in the courts. The courts would be drawn into deciding who should and should not be a Member of your Lordships’ House—a Member of this Chamber of Parliament—which is a flagrant breach of what we have always understood by the separation of powers.

It may be suggested that the legislation contemplated by these amendments to make HOLAC statutory could in some way circumscribe the power of the courts to intervene. I am afraid that history demonstrates that in a contest of that kind between the parliamentary draftsman and the courts, the courts usually win.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend is making a very serious point. Would he perhaps consider that the power of judicial review would be reduced if HOLAC was obliged, before making a public statement, to give the person affected the opportunity to respond?

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

On the contrary, if reasons were given, those reasons could be the basis of a challenge in the courts. I fear I entirely disagree with the last point my noble friend made in his speech, when he suggested that reasons should be given. If reasons are given, they can form a stronger or a particular basis for a challenge in the courts.

I shall content myself with one example of the attitude of the courts to attempts to circumscribe their powers to intervene. When I was Home Secretary, a decision was made, though not by me, to refuse British nationality to someone whom I will not name. The relevant statute says that in such cases the Home Office is not obliged to give reasons for its decision. The High Court decided that these words meant what most people would think they meant, which was that the Home Office did not have to give any reasons. The Court of Appeal, however, decided that because the statute gave the Home Office discretion as to whether it could give reasons, it was wrong not to give the reasons. Your Lordship will see what I mean when I say that it is extremely difficult to circumscribe the determination of the courts to intervene.

I do not think that the courts should have a role in determining the membership of your Lordships’ House. That would be a consequence of these amendments. I urge your Lordships to reject them.

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Moved by

[Viscount Hailsham]

14: In subsection (2), at beginning insert “Until the conclusion of the Parliament in which this Act is passed but not beyond,”

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendments 14 and 15 would have very limited impact. The problem with Amendment 13 from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, is that it flies in the face of the attempt—which I think is felt within your Lordships’ House—to get the numbers down and to refresh this House. I have nothing against the extension proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord provided that it is confined to this Parliament and limited to five years. Otherwise, we will run the risk of extending terms for substantial periods. That is not what I think this House wants.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, although, with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, it does not actually mention hereditary Peers. This debate has ranged much more widely. At some stage we will need to discuss the next steps for reform. I hope that we will not overlook the work of either the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, or the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who had some very sound proposals in his report that we somehow seem to have swept under the carpet.

I have been here for nearly 18 years and I have no wish to retire, but it is possible that, if I still have my marbles in another 12 years, I would be grateful for an honourable way to go. Most of us are appointed because we have expertise in a particular field, but it is quite possible that, after 15 years, our expertise is not quite as lively as it was when we first came in, so having this sort of term seems to make quite a lot of sense.

I cannot understand why noble Lords have not grouped more amendments in this debate. This seems an unnecessary waste of your Lordships’ time and, I fear, the sort of thing that brings this House into disrepute. I note that the ungrouped amendments all seem to come from the Conservative Benches. I wonder why.

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[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting debate to listen to. I was brought up properly and told that you are never to discuss a woman’s age, but, in the context of the debate today, it does feel slightly relevant given my own, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I believe we are currently in the prime of our economic earning, in the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell.

The current average service of your Lordships’ House is 13.74 years, and the average age on appointment in the last Parliament was 56. I will be 57 if we get to 15 years of service, so I would be leaving very quickly and would still be a very young member of your Lordships’ House.

With regard to the substance of the debate today, these amendments concern the imposition of term limits, as we have discussed. It may be useful to summarise what the themes of the amendments in this group have been, not least because they demonstrate that there is not yet a consensus on next steps.

Amendment 13, tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, provides for a 15-year term limit for life Peers. His proposal includes the possibility of applying to HOLAC for reappointment while providing that no Member can sit for more than 30 years in total. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has sought to further amend this by proposing that Members can apply for reappointment only during the Parliament in which this Bill passes and not beyond. His amendments also seek to limit the length of reappointment to five years, therefore reducing the original total limit proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord from 30 to 20 years.

Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso—in an excellent speech—goes for a term limit of 20 years, but also for life peerages granted after the end of this year. Amendment 73, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a draft Bill with proposals for a term limit of up to 10 years.

The underlying intent of the majority of these amendments is to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House—an aspiration the Government share. Some noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, made clear that they were motivated by the principle that no one should automatically be a Member of this place for life. Both he and I have experienced that at the other end, so making it happen here seems appropriate.

The smattering of amendments in this group demonstrate a range of different ways that term limits could be introduced. It is clear there is not a settled view among your Lordships on the arrangements of introducing a term limit. More importantly, however, the Bill before this House today is not the legislative vehicle for implementing these issues. The Bill is focused solely on removing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in this House. These amendments, while both thoughtful and considered, are not the central issue of this Bill.

Furthermore, the Government’s view is that the introduction of retirement age, as promised in our manifesto, is a more effective way of reducing our numbers, rather than the introduction of a term limit. As your Lordships are aware, my noble friend the Leader of the House has been having an ongoing dialogue with the House on how the manifesto commitment of introducing a retirement age can best be implemented. The Leader has already had in excess of 60 meetings and she is keen for that dialogue to continue. With respect, these amendments would cut across those conversations. With this in mind, I respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment standing in my name.

Amendment 14 (to Amendment 13) withdrawn.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend Lord Caithness is right to point out that the effect of this Bill is to make your Lordships’ House a second Chamber almost entirely nominated by the Prime Minister. I say “almost” because his amendment refers only to the Lords temporal; as noble Lords know, the Lords spiritual come here by a different means. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has reminded us, a small number of Cross-Bench Peers have come in through nomination by the House of Lords Appointments Commission and what was at one time called the “people’s Peers” process.

Having served as a political secretary to a former Prime Minister, my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead, I know that even those recommendations made by the independent commission are laid before the Prime Minister. It is at a time of the Prime Minister’s choosing—not the commission’s choosing—when those nominations are made. The rate and regularity with which those nominations can be made is often a cause of some consternation between the commission and the Government.

When the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal stands up, she can perhaps say a little bit about that. I think that the noble and learned Baroness, indeed many of us, would be delighted if there were some commitments on codifying that process a bit more formally, or at least a commitment to the number or regularity—

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

In view of what my noble friend, Lord Strathclyde, and, indeed, the Minister have said, is there not a case for putting HOLAC on a statutory basis, as relating both to its existence and to its manner of appointment?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend asks a very good question, but that is a question for a different group. The question of the House of Lords Appointments Commission is, rightly, worthy of a debate in a group of its own. If the noble Baroness wants to respond to my noble friend’s question when she rises, she can do so, but I will not anticipate the debate that we will have on HOLAC.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is of course right in what she pointed out about Amendment 2 from my noble friend Lord Caithness. In broad terms, however, he has done us a useful service by reminding us that what is being proposed in this Bill is out of keeping with the history of our Parliament and almost without precedent among other legislative bodies around the world. My noble friend dealt with the similarities and differences with the Canadian Senate; that is about the only other example—in a much smaller House, with term limits—that one can find of a House of Parliament that is entirely nominated by the head of the Executive.

What is before us today is a Bill that will weaken the legislature and strengthen the Executive, tilting the balance of power away from those who believe that power ought to be held very robustly to account, and it will leave those scales unbalanced for as long as the Government see fit, for there is nothing in this Bill to compel them to set those scales right again or even to fulfil the promises of further reform that they made in their most recent manifesto. What we are debating today is an incomplete job.

At Second Reading the Lord Privy Seal spoke at perhaps surprising length about a full stop in the Government’s manifesto. Never has so much constitutional weight been placed on such a small punctuation mark. The same punctuation was used in Labour’s 1997 manifesto, on which the noble Baroness was first elected to Parliament. In that instance, it meant a very full stop indeed. The Blair Government fulfilled their commitment that, to quote from their manifesto,

“the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute”.

That sentence, like all sentences in the English language eventually do, ended with a full stop and we did not think very much about it at the time. But, after that full stop, the next sentence in the 1997 manifesto promised:

“This will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative”.


For more than a decade later in that Labour Government, however, the legislative pen was stuck on that spherical stumbling block. Stage 2 never followed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

I do trust that the noble Earl is not suggesting that members of the Royal Family should participate in debates. That would be wholly disastrous.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

If the noble Viscount listens to my next paragraph, I will clarify that point.

I should also note, for the record, that we have a recent precedent for a grandchild of a sovereign seeking to join your Lordships’ House as an elected hereditary. In 2018, when I stood for a Cross-Bench vacancy upon the retirement of Earl Baldwin, one of the other 19 hereditary Peers to stand against me was the second Earl of Snowdon, previously Viscount Linley, who is a grandson of His late Majesty King George VI. I believe he withdrew his candidacy before the voting took place—obviously cowed by the strength of the other candidates. The publicly proffered reasoning for his withdrawal was that, as a member of the Royal Family, he should not sit in Parliament by convention—a reason which may indeed render my amendment dead in the water.

This aside reminds us that the only Members of your Lordships’ House that have any democratic legitimacy whatsoever happen to be the hereditary Peers. While we may be tainted by our hereditary privilege, we have at least vanquished multiple highly qualified competitors in transparent elections to obtain our seats. Indeed, I think we fulfil the second sentence in Labour’s 1997 manifesto, highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, by increasing the democratic legitimacy of this House. It is, I submit, a pity that we cannot fill other seats in your Lordships’ House by equivalent means.

I look forward to the debate on this topic. I am particularly interested to hear the views of the Front Benches of each of the main political parties, including the Minister, as this offers an opportunity for them all to clarify for posterity exactly how they view the role of the hereditary principle in the context of our monarch and how they expect to protect and support His Majesty the King in this House once we hereditary Peers have left the building.

In parting, I note that in earlier debates on this Bill, both the Government and the Liberal Democrats have pointed to the King’s legitimacy being based not upon the hereditary principle but upon his popularity and how well he does his job. This is transparently not the case. The monarch is not a competitor in a reality television show; he is our sovereign Head of State. He is born to his position and anointed, for those with Anglican faith, by God by the Archbishop of Canterbury. We all watched the Coronation, and I hope that is a fact we can all agree to. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I too have put my name to this amendment. These two Great Officers of State have been in existence since 1386, in the case of the Earl Marshal, and 1130, in the case of Lord Great Chamberlain. It was intended that they were required not only to perform their constitutional duties at the State Opening of Parliament and other events related to the sovereign but to be a vital link between the Crown and Parliament. To sever that link is a severe challenge to the monarch and deeply regrettable. Therefore, they should be allowed to remain as Members of the House.

I have it on reasonable authority that, originally, the Cabinet Office informed the officeholders that their positions were safe. Apparently, two weeks later, the change of mind was made. I highlight the contributions over the years, and since I have been in the House, of the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, and the current Lord Great Chamberlain.

The Leader of the House has issued conflicting messages on how the officeholders will continue to have access to the House of Lords. She concluded at Second Reading:

“On the specific issue of access … for the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain, I completely recognise that they need access. I have written to the commission to ask that they keep their access passes, and the usual channels have agreed that … There is nothing that impedes the work they do or their roles in this House”.—[Official Report, 11/12/24; col. 1861.]


However, in opening that debate, she had stated:

“I have already raised this with the Lord Speaker to ensure that necessary arrangements can be made”.—[Official Report, 11/12/24; col. 1723.]


Quite apart from the lack of clarity as to whether these two officeholders have to rely on the approval of the commission or the Lord Speaker, what would happen if one refused to give them access? I therefore propose that, if the Government cannot agree to this amendment, there should be an alternative one in the Bill to guarantee that they have access to the Chamber to perform their ceremonial duties.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I too put my name to the amendment. My point is wholly pragmatic. It seems that the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain would be better placed to perform their functions, which they have to perform, if they were entitled to come here on a regular basis and were familiar with this place and the staff. To deny them that opportunity makes it more difficult for them to perform the functions that they will be required to perform.

Middle East

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I must admit I thought I had made it clear that we will maintain those sanctions. We are extremely concerned at the increased level of violence, and we have conveyed this to the Israeli Government. The ceasefire is fragile, and we need to build confidence. The noble and right reverend Lord is absolutely right that such confidence relates not only to Gaza but to all the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We are committed to ensuring that this fragile ceasefire and peace process moves towards a more sustainable, long-lasting peace, which requires a two-state solution. That is what we are committed to, and so are the United States Government. We need to focus on that; where we have common support, we need to ensure that we work together. President Trump has been working with the Saudis to ensure that they can come into the process of the Abraham accords. The Saudis want to see a two-state solution, and that is what we are all working towards.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that if, at the end of the initial period, Israel renews the war in Gaza, as is called for by some right-wing Members of the Government, such action, without clear, obvious and compelling justification, will do immense damage to the international standing of Israel and to its moral reputation?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I am not going to speculate on what might happen. The point I would make is one that was made by the noble Earl, Lord Courtown. We are in a fragile situation. We have a ceasefire, which we have been demanding for many months, and now that we have it we need to ensure that, during this fragile process, we build confidence for the future. That means taking a step-by-step approach, with all parties, and not looking backwards at the horrors of the past but to the future, with hope for prosperity.

House of Lords: Numbers and Eligibility

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, how and when we implement our manifesto is, as it is for every single party, a matter for the Government. One of the things I committed to this House is having discussions on how we implement 80; I said that in the first Answer. There is also the issue of participation. I think the House will want to have a view on those things, and I am happy to accept representations on how they are implemented.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, may I suggest that in future, Peers are appointed for a limited period, say 10 or 15 years?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, that was not the commitment in the Labour Party manifesto, but it has been raised with me by several noble Lords. There are different views across the House on that. I think the Burns report recommended 15 years, and another suggestion was 20 years. There is a choice for the House to make. I have not detected overall support for that. Partly, it has come about because much younger Peers have been appointed, and an appointment for life means that they are here for a very long time. The contrary to that is that hopefully, they will build up great expertise during their time here.

Business of the House

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the advisory time is based on the number of Members speaking. It is advisory out of courtesy to the whole House. Looking at other debates of a similar nature and time, I am confident that the House can make its views known in that time.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, following what my noble friend has just said, would it not have been better to have had a two-day debate? I declare an interest: alas, because of professional engagements, I cannot get here at 11 am, and I had hoped to participate in the Second Reading debate. A two-day debate would have been altogether preferable.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry about that; I would have welcomed the noble Viscount’s contribution. However, he will appreciate that two days are sometimes difficult for other colleagues. This was agreed, via the usual channels, with the Chief Whip’s Office.

House of Lords Reform

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. To our mutual embarrassment, I think we agree more often than we care to admit in public.

In the available five minutes, I shall focus on my conclusions; my reasons will follow in future debates. First, I have always supported an elected second Chamber. The Executive, through their ability to dominate the House of Commons, is far too powerful. To balance that, we need a second Chamber with much greater powers than this House possesses. In the contemporary world, that means an elected House. However, I recognise that at the moment there is no appetite for such radical change.

Secondly, I agree that the size of this House is too large. I would seek to reduce it to around 600 by the end of this Parliament, although I do not think that it is a first-order issue.

Thirdly, as regards the appointed Peers, it is undesirable that they should be appointed for life. I suggest a term of, say, 10 or 15 years.

Fourthly, on the Bishops—I apologise to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield—I think that 26 is too many. I noted what the noble Baroness said but five is quite sufficient: the two archbishops and the bishops of Durham, Winchester and London. However, I would not insist on an immediate episcopal cull and would hope to have retirement at the conventional retirement age.

Fifthly, it is reasonable to impose a retirement age on sitting Peers. The age of 80 or so sounds reasonable to me although, if the Labour Party’s manifesto proposal is implemented, the actual age of retirement in many cases will be somewhat greater. Both my wife—the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg—and I fall into that category.

Sixthly, there should be an effective filter on the appointment of Peers. Independent scrutiny of suitability and intended participation is highly desirable although, in respect of sitting Peers, I would be very cautious about too rigorous a test as to participation, otherwise, in order to satisfy scrutineers, there could be an excess of interventions by the hitherto largely silent.

Lastly, on the hereditary Peers, in my view their proposed exclusion is highly regrettable. For Labour, the proposal is largely totemic, like the ban on fox hunting or VAT on private school fees. Many hereditaries have contributed hugely to the business of Parliament. Moreover, I question whether their presence in this House raises any more issues of principle than those raised by the presence of the rest of us—for we, the appointed Peers, are after all sent here in a wholly unaccountable manner, whereas the Conservative hereditary Peers seeking a place in this House have generally to appear at hustings, answering questions from an often critical electorate, which is not a filter that the rest of us have to face.

I agree that the by-elections should be abolished with immediate effect. Having failed in two such by-elections, I sit as a life Peer. But as to the hereditary Peers themselves, if they are to be removed, I suggest that it should be at the end of this Parliament. By that time the Government will have had ample time to come forward with a range of considered and comprehensive proposals.

The early removal of the hereditary Peers will be a serious loss to both country and Parliament. It will do a very grave injustice to individuals, many of whom have served with great distinction—and we may then find that no further reforms are brought forward.

Gaza and Lebanon

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I heard the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, on the radio. I am always willing to take his advice; I have done so on many occasions in the House. It is pity that he did not take mine. The reality of the situation in the West Bank is that violence is increasing. I would certainly go on record condemning the totally unacceptable language of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. It is appalling. As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, knows, I would not speculate on future sanctions, but let me tell noble Lords that yesterday, under the global human rights regime, the United Kingdom sanctioned three outposts and four entities linked to the violence in the West Bank. So we are acting and will be prepared to act. We are certainly not going to tolerate the sort of violence that I have personally witnessed in the West Bank.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, when I was working in the Foreign Office some 30 years ago, I met Mr Netanyahu on a number of occasions. I formed a very clear view of him: the creation of a permanent homeland for the Palestinians was not on his agenda. Does the Minister share my concern that there are now many people making policy in Israel who, by their acts and omissions—both on the West Bank and in Gaza—are creating facts on the ground that will make it impossible for the Palestinians to live in either of those two territories? Thereby, an enlarged and largely Palestinian-free Israel will have been created.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I am not going to speculate on the motives—I am certainly not going to speculate on what is going on in the mind of Premier Netanyahu—but what I do know is that our allies and the United Kingdom have a long-standing commitment to ensure that the integrity of the State of Israel is upheld, and that this should go alongside an independent Palestinian state, with two states living side by side. The road map to that two-state solution is not an easy one but I am absolutely determined that this Government, the United States and our allies in the European Union are all committed to it. I hope that we can influence those in Israel who might not have the same sort of view.