House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Earl of Dundee

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, as has been said by practically everybody, participation statistics—such as simply the numbers of annual interventions by any Peer, without enough reference to the contents, let alone to the parliamentary usefulness and quality of those interventions—are thoroughly misleading.

At the same time, adjudications should obviously take into account how a Peer may have contributed in the usual ways through speeches, Written Questions, committee work, voting and so on.

Your Lordships may agree with what I think has emerged very clearly from this debate: rather than going only by participation numbers, a far clearer picture would emerge from assessments made by a cross-party commission set up for this purpose, as proposed in Amendment 63, and just now so eloquently explained and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I support the adoption of a participation requirement as provided for in Amendment 26. Standing Orders should be drawn up to set a minimum participation level but should take account of the fact that some noble Lords who seldom speak exert a considerable degree of influence, whereas other noble Lords who speak often and at length may exert rather less influence. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay had this in mind when he tabled his Amendment 28, which I look forward to hearing him speak to. It is important that the committee appointed to consider and approve provisions should consider this fact.

I also support Amendment 40 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, which seeks to do the same thing and provides for the House to provide an exemption from compulsory retirement in cases where there are good reasons why a noble Lord may have failed to live up to the declaration of intent that he or she signed at the start of each Session of Parliament. Perhaps the declaration of intent could be combined with the Code of Conduct so as not to lengthen the time required for oath-taking, which is already rather time consuming.

Amendment 63 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, is just another way of ensuring that noble Lords must achieve a minimum participation level to justify retaining their seats in your Lordships’ House. It seeks to establish a cross-party commission to make recommendations and ultimately, after 18 months, would require the Secretary of State to introduce a Bill to put the minimum participation level on a statutory footing. This has both advantages and disadvantages; it would be difficult and would require further legislation to make any changes to participation levels. The amendment is also silent on any provision for exceptions to compulsory retirement being possible in cases where the House considers that a noble Lord should be spared eviction.