House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Mattinson on her excellent speech; I look forward to many more contributions.

I give broad support for this Bill. This is the third day this week that we have debated, in effect, this House. As a Deputy Speaker, I have sat at the Table listening to some very interesting speeches This Bill is about the future and, when the history is written of the reform of the 2020s, if noble Lords do not mind my saying so, I think that my noble friend Lord Grocott, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, will all have their place in it. I speak as a fellow member of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. Our current system of appointments is widely thought to be inadequate to protect the reputation of the House and, hence, to protect the credibility of its work. After all, and despite the surroundings of this building, we are a workshop, not a museum.

In the time available, I want to make a couple of brief points. To start with a word about Part 3, I listened to an exchange earlier this week between the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, about whether putting it on a statutory basis would make it justiciable. I am not a lawyer, but I am convinced, partly by the exchange and partly by Clause 3, that that would not be a problem for the future. It is right for HOLAC to give advice, but it is still right for the Prime Minister to refuse it. What this Bill will do is to strengthen the position of HOLAC vis-à-vis the Prime Minister. I do not blame Prime Ministers—I do not think that there is anyone here, if they became a Prime Minister, who would not be tempted by the power of patronage. For every person you appoint, you can keep 10 people hovering about trying to do what you want anyway.

I look at this Bill in the context of British political and constitutional history: the struggle for the franchise; the struggle of Parliament over the monarch, and now the Executive. We have fought kings in the past. I remember that, in the previous debate we had on this in November 2022, our noble and dear departed friend Lord Judge made a wonderful speech about this, which is well worth listening to. This Bill has its place in the story of reform. It may be that the Government do not choose to support it today, but, when we look ahead, I think it will form part of the future and a wider package of reforms, which we do not have time to discuss at length now. On that basis, this is a Bill that is worth debating and worth giving a Second Reading to today, so that the debate can move forward.