House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Strathclyde

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, the night is young and there is still plenty of time, so it is a real delight to move Amendment 90A in front of an audience of the Labour Party on its Benches. I have to tell noble Lords opposite that their own Front Bench has been working valiantly during the days we have spent on this Bill with near-deserted Back Benches. It has been rather depressing, in just the last few minutes, to see the Government Chief Whip going around tapping the odd folk on the shoulder and sending them home just as I was about to get to my feet and get into my stride. But that will not put me off.

This amendment is not a probing amendment; it is a helpful amendment, designed at a problem that has been haunting the House of Lords for many years. My noble friend Lord Fowler, and the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Butler, have referred to it this evening in looking for imaginative ways of dealing with the issue of the numbers in the House.

At a stroke, this amendment finds the solution to that, and it does so in several ways. This is an amendment that is already in statute law in the House of Lords Act 1999. It is therefore extremely well precedented; we have demonstrated that it can work. Perhaps noble Lords who were around 25 years ago will remember that the then Convenor of the Cross Benches, Lord Weatherill, moved an amendment—which became known as the Weatherill amendment—to reduce the number of hereditary Peers to the 92 that exist at the moment. This amendment seeks to reduce the size of the whole House to some 600-odd people—the Bishops, incidentally, are supernumerary to that. It would do so by election—a well-tested method of reducing the size of the House that worked extremely well in 1999.

Tonight, I offer it up to the Committee, not just as one amendment but as three in one. It is a solution to a problem, it is already in law, and it is already well precedented. I know that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will find the amendment very difficult to accept, but perhaps she will indicate that she finds real attraction in finding an electoral way of reducing the size of the House without relying on the kinds of formula that so many noble Lords tried to introduce in the past. I offer it to the Committee, and I very much hope that it might be brought forward in a future Bill in due course. I beg to move.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on tabling his very sensible Amendment 90A. It should find favour on all Benches because, as my noble friend said, it ticks so many boxes. It would ensure that the hereditary Peers who have sat in your Lordships’ House these 25 years have not sat in vain. We were allowed to continue to sit on the basis that stage 2 would provide some substantive reform and move the House’s composition in the direction of a popular basis, as stated in the Parliament Act 1911.

The amendment would introduce some democratic legitimacy by allocating seats according to party blocs based on the average of the number of votes cast in the last three general elections. That provision would ensure that the composition of the House provides a balance to major shifts in public opinion that result in wide disparity of seats in the House of Commons, which is elected on a first past the post basis. It would give a nod to PR, since the voting strengths are determined on the basis of the number of votes cast, ensure that your Lordships’ House provides stability, and help to avoid dramatic shifts in policy supported by the public only ephemerally.

The amendment should be supported by those of your Lordships who agree with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, that the House should be reduced to 600 people. It should also be supported by those noble Lords who believe that the Bill as drafted is discriminatory, in that it treats some members of the body of Lords temporal differently from others although, for all practical purposes, there is no difference between life and hereditary Peers in terms of rights and privileges in this House. We are appointed to serve on committees or on the Front Bench without any consideration of the route by which we entered your Lordships’ House.

The amendment treats all holders of a Writ of Summons to this Parliament equally. It would result in the House enjoying greater democratic legitimacy but retain the service of those noble Lords who are more independent, and election by party groups would give preference to those who work harder and make a greater contribution. It is an excellent amendment, and I ask the noble Baroness the Leader of the House to consider it seriously.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Strathclyde

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

We should thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for introducing this amendment. It is a subject worth discussing. Since this Bill is designed to fling out a cohort of your Lordships’ House who on the whole do turn up and play a part and some of whom hold very senior and important roles in the House, it is worth discussing for a few minutes those who hardly come at all and finding out whether there should be some kind of attendance threshold.

The amendment that we are discussing deals with attendance. My noble friend Lord Hailsham mentioned participation—but I think that participation, which is very important, is a very different issue from attendance, and we will come to it in the course of today’s deliberations. What the noble Earls, Lord Kinnoull and Lord Devon, said about the Cross Benches is very important. We do not want to discourage or reduce the ability of those Peers who have something to say but for a whole variety of reasons come less often than most of us; that is why the threshold should be realistic but relatively low.

I think that what my noble friend Lord Blencathra was saying was that, if it had been set at 10%, we would lose about 100 Peers, from past records. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham that we should not do anything that is retrospective. I do not think there is a problem and that suddenly a whole bunch of Peers would turn up because they wanted to be above the threshold—because the Peers who come hardly at all have already decided that they do not want to play a part in your Lordships’ House, but do not want to retire or take leave of absence. So this is a useful amendment and a useful debate and discussion—and setting the threshold at 10% I do not think will put anybody off.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend Lord Blencathra in bringing forward this topic, and I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde has just said.

When I looked at my noble friend’s three amendments, I was inclined to think that Amendment 20 struck the right balance. It is important to retain the concept of the House of Lords as a part-time House, but I also believe that, to remain sufficiently involved in what is going on so as to be able to make a contribution to debates on matters in which noble Lords possess expertise and knowledge, a participation level of 10% may be on the low side. But, as long as your Lordships’ House retains its present sitting hours, 15% is a reasonable minimum participation level—although it would be difficult to maintain a full-time job outside the House and a 15% participation level if the House were to adopt similar sitting hours to the House of Commons.

However, my noble friend Lord Hailsham is right to provide in his Amendment 25 for the possibility that the House may resolve to exempt a noble Lord from compulsory retirement if it concludes that there was a good cause for that noble Lord’s non-attendance. I entirely agree with the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about low-attendance, high-impact Members.

I also support Amendment 37, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. This amendment would allow the House to provide exceptions to compulsory retirement, but, interestingly, allows the possibility of first fixing and later changing the minimum participation rate through Standing Orders, which would provide for more flexibility. My noble friend Lord Blencathra is absolutely right to ask your Lordships to consider this matter, because the Labour Party manifesto also committed to introduce a new participation requirement, at the same time as excluding the excepted hereditary Peers. Those who believe that the House is too large may also support the introduction of a minimum participation level. I would expect that the retirement of a number of inactive Peers would make it easier for the Government to find a better way forward that would cause less disruption to the ability of the House to discharge its functions in a way that serves the country well.

Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Strathclyde

Committee stage
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Forsyth and have signed Amendment 37. We have now got to the stage of the debate where this amendment has been grouped with Amendments 37F and 37G from my noble friends Lord Leicester and Lord Douglas-Miller.

This is a really interesting debate, because much of what this involves is in Scotland. Of course, there are aspects of this which are devolved. It might be tempting for the Minister to say that it is nothing to do with him, but I think that would be unwise and unhelpful. I hope that the Minister is not tempted to do that, because Clause 3(1) states:

“This Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.


It would be helpful to know what discussions, if any, have taken place between the Minister’s department and Scotland Office Ministers about the kinds of issues that have been raised so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Forsyth. I say “eloquently” but I mean vividly as well and, in some cases, very movingly, too.

I am not one of those who has always been implacably opposed to salmon farms around Scotland. What I very much oppose is what my noble friend described and has described in his amendment as lowering “environmental impact” and lowering “animal welfare standards”. It must be in all our interests to ensure that these salmon farms, which provide so much economic activity in relatively marginal areas, should also be run in such a way that we can all be proud of what they are doing.

I look forward particularly to the speech on aquaculture that my noble friend Lord Douglas-Miller will make in a few moments, and that of my noble friend Lord Leicester on offshore energy installations and generation. In the meantime, I do not know whether the Minister will be able to accept my noble friend’s amendment—it would be great if he could—but what I suspect is more likely, and what I would like him to do, is to give a very positive encouragement to this amendment so that perhaps at a later stage the Government might come forward with their own amendment to put right what is clearly a wrong.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading, but I am supportive of the Bill’s objective to enable the Crown Estate to continue to fulfil its core duty of maintaining and enhancing its value.

Amendment 37, as introduced so powerfully by my noble friend Lord Forsyth and to which I have added my name, is a massive improvement to the Bill. I also agree with what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said in his impressive speech. I suspect that the main purpose of the Bill in the minds of its drafters was to ensure that the Crown Estate should continue to focus on activities which align with wider national needs, including energy security and sustainable economic growth, as the Explanatory Notes make clear. Indeed, the Bill specifically mentions its role as an enabler of offshore wind power generation.

Offshore wind power generation has a part to play in our energy mix, but it may receive too much emphasis as most offshore wind projects produce electricity too far away from where it is needed, and the costs of transmission and storage are often opaque. I would like to see more emphasis on small and so-called advanced nuclear reactors, which can be sited adjacent to data centres and industrial clusters where the energy is actually needed.

It would appear that the Government have introduced this legislation with only one major objective: to encourage and enable the Crown Estate to build more offshore wind farms. This is also evidenced by the announcement of the partnership with Great British Energy. I look forward to learning more about how GBE will operate; there are still relatively few details available. However, it is important in legislating to increase commercial activity in the seabed around our shores that restrictions must be placed on the development of salmon farms in England and Wales, especially given the damaging effects on nature and the environment resulting from salmon farms operated in coastal waters and sea lochs in Scotland. I declare an interest in that I fish in England on the River Tamar, as well as on the Rivers Laggan and Sorn on the Scottish island of Islay. We do not want to see the depleted populations of salmon migrating to English and Welsh rivers exposed to the additional threats posed by salmon farms.

Just over a month ago, my noble friend Lord Forsyth asked in Grand Committee what steps the Government were taking to protect wild salmon populations. I confess to having been underwhelmed by the reply to the debate given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, especially on two points: the need to monitor more strictly the harmful activities of some salmon farms, and the quite ridiculous restrictions placed on river-keepers’ ability to control stocks of predators such as cormorants. She noted that some predators are themselves protected so we had to be

“careful about how and when such predators can be managed”.—[Official Report, 12/9/24; cols. GC 170-171.]

I think that the noble Baroness is unaware that the cormorant population has increased from some 2,000 in the 1980s to over 62,000 today. Each bird requires over a pound of fish a day; why are they still protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981? Why does the EU still protect them under the birds directive? Does the Minister know how many gamekeepers are employed by the Crown Estate and how many cormorants they are licensed to shoot each year?

In replying to the debate last month, the noble Baroness the Minister said that the Government recognised the need for higher standards to be maintained in fish farms. The problems of excessive sea lice escaping fish possessing a very different genetic make-up and a very different DNA construct compared with indigenous fish were raised by several noble Lords in that debate, and spoken to especially powerfully by my noble friend Lord Forsyth just now. What discussions has the Minister had with the Crown Estate about fish farms and about moving to more sustainable methods of farming salmon, especially land-based farms, which are completely isolated from the endangered wild salmon population? As my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Strathclyde have already said, this amendment would very much improve the Bill.

It is fortunate that, until now, English river systems have been, I believe, free of open-net fish farms, but I worry that the encouragement, implicit in the Bill, for the Crown Estate to increase commercial activity might change that—and I believe that this amendment is therefore absolutely necessary. I hope that the Minister will accept it.