House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 9th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My ancestor was given a title. I cannot remember quite what it was for; I did not talk to him about it. It was 500 or so years ago. That is why I want to get rid of us—but I also want to get rid of the life Peers as well.

Let me continue. The important quote from 1999 is that,

“the House … will be the stronger, the more independent of patronage and the better”,

and:

“I believe without equivocation … that the House of Lords will be better for the 92”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/99; cols. 1200-01.]

Those words were spoken by my now noble friend Lord Cormack, who clearly does not now believe that.

He is not the only former MP to change his mind about this House. On Monday, we heard a very good speech from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who admitted that when he was in the House of Commons he was totally ignorant about this House and did not pay any attention to it. I totally concur with that. When I was a Minister in the 1980s, I found that my Secretaries of State were not very conversant with the procedures of this House and found us an irritation—there were then far more hereditaries—but subsequently changed their mind.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

Will the noble Earl assist me? I wish to listen to all the arguments. Has he just regrouped the amendments in front of us? He has spoken to a later amendment. It would be helpful to the House if such groupings were made more formal.

[The Earl of Caithness]

I certainly apologise to the House for not grouping the amendment. I put the amendment down yesterday, which was rather later than I should have put it down. It came to my mind as a result of the debate we had on Monday.

As I said, my noble friend Lord Cormack is not the only one to have changed his mind about this House. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, when he was leader of the Liberal Party, carried the Asquith banner for the abolition of the House of Lords. When he came here, he had the chance to fulfil that, and we all hoped he would. The next leader, Mr Clegg, scuppered the next attempt to reform the House almost single-handedly. It was a great shame.

I warned the Lord Speaker—he is no longer my noble friend because he is the Lord Speaker—that I would refer to him. He quite rightly suggested when he took his position that the House of Lords was a little large. He was in favour of an elected House in 1999. He said so in the debate. He also voted for and against the amendment in the same year. It was at different times: one was February or March of 1999 and the other was in November. My noble friend Lord Hailsham voted against the amendment in 1999—but he stood for election as a hereditary Peer, so he obviously thought it was quite a good idea.

As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, the debate on Monday has brought a sort of consensus that all these areas need to be looked at. I remain of the opinion that keeping the hereditaries here will bring about a speedier and more radical reform of the House of Lords, which I firmly believe is needed.