House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Baroness Finn Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent and constructive debate on the composition of your Lordships’ House and the Government’s proposals for reform. I thank the Lord Privy Seal for her measured and courteous introduction. I apologise that I will not be able to address all the points raised.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham on his maiden speech. His thoughtful contribution reminds us of the diversity of thought and expertise that this House nurtures and I welcome him to his place. It was also a privilege to hear the heart-warming valedictory speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. Her record of public service is long and enviable. I hope I speak for the whole House in wishing her well for the future; the people of Newcastle are lucky to benefit from her continued service.

Reform of this House is no simple task. History bears this out. As many noble Lords have pointed out, successive Governments, including those of my party, have struggled to achieve lasting change. When the coalition Government attempted to pass their House of Lords Reform Bill, it was the Labour Party that blocked its progress. If we have learned anything, it is that meaningful reform demands consensus, respect for precedent and an understanding of what makes this House effective. This Bill does not meet that standard. It is piecemeal, short-sighted and damaging to the institutional integrity of this House.

Let me be clear: the hereditary principle is unsustainable. The House of Lords Act 1999 abolished the automatic right of hereditary Peers to sit here. What remains today is not hereditary privilege but a carefully constructed compromise that was agreed by both Houses of Parliament. This Bill abandons that compromise. It seeks to exclude a group of Peers who currently have the right to sit and vote in this House— the 92 excepted Peers who remained Members of your Lordships’ House after they were elected to remain under the terms of the House of Lords Act 1999. That Act is clear, as I have said, that:

“No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage”.


That is the law. No Member of this House sits by right of inheritance and I make no argument to the contrary.

However, the 92 excepted Peers were retained on the explicit understanding that they would stay until comprehensive, second-stage reform was enacted. The Government may wish to argue that this Bill fulfils a manifesto commitment, at least up until the full stop in their manifesto, and that we on these Benches should not seek to prevent them from delivering their manifesto commitments. Yet this Bill remains silent on retirement age, an express commitment in the same paragraph of their manifesto. It is similarly silent on participation requirements and HOLAC reform. I am struck by how many noble Lords today have expressed support for such measures.

The Government have in fact already achieved the removal of hereditary Peers from this House, as by-elections for the election of new excepted Peers have been suspended by agreement.

On Monday, I read that a senior government official had briefed the press that “This Bill is focused on completing what was started 25 years ago”. Yet this Bill is a naked breach of what was promised 25 years ago. In 1999, the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, said the retention of the hereditary Peers until the second stage of House of Lords reform had taken place was “binding in honour”, a point reinforced by my noble friends Lord Strathclyde and Lord Mancroft, and my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy. Removing the excepted Peers without the promised second-stage reform is a breach of that promise, as my noble friend Lord Hannan so eloquently argued. It is not completing a process, as many have claimed today. It is betraying an agreement; it is removing the keystone of a constitutional bridge while leaving the structure incomplete. Without a clear plan for second-stage reform, the Bill risks becoming not a fulfilment of promises, but their abandonment. I therefore ask the Lord Privy Seal whether she can provide us with certainty that the second stage of reform will come before we proceed with the exclusion of any excepted Peers. Do the Government intend to fulfil those parts of their manifesto promises—the parts that followed the full stop that she was so keen to point out—in this Parliament?

Our challenge to the Government is rooted in the need for an effective upper House, one that scrutinises legislation rigorously, holds the Executive to account and brings vast depths of knowledge and experience to Parliament. This House, as with so much of our unwritten constitution, is both unique and the product of the history of these isles, as my noble friend Lord Roberts so beautifully observed. Nobody designing a modern constitution from scratch would conceive of such a Chamber playing a role, a point made by my noble friends Lady Laing and Lady Meyer, but through organic, historical evolution, it is no exaggeration to say that this House is the highest policy-revising chamber in the world. The House brings together some of the most accomplished and dedicated individuals who apply their skills, insights and expertise to scrutinising legislation and holding the Executive to account. All constitutional reforms have profound and far-reaching consequences, whether intended or not. The legitimacy of this House derives not from democratic consent but from its ability to act as a positive constitutional force in lawmaking and governmental accountability. This legitimacy is grounded in the capabilities and dedication of our Members.

The question, therefore, is: will the Bill enhance or hinder the capacity of this House to scrutinise the Government and draft Bills effectively? I would aver, as would many noble Lords who have spoken today, including the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and my noble friends Lord Reay and Lord Bethell, that, judged against this test, the Bill fails. It threatens to remove some of the most active, knowledgeable and experienced Members of this House, individuals whose contributions have been vital to its effectiveness.

Many noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Strathcarron and Lady Goldie, pointed out that excepted Peers have higher average attendance and participation in Divisions than life Peers. Moreover, a quarter of them served in government, opposition, or formal parliamentary roles in the previous Parliament. Take my noble friend Lord Howe, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, whose expertise in defence and health is unparalleled, or the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, the Convenor of the Cross Benches, whose leadership has been instrumental in maintaining this Chamber’s independence. Consider also my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, a former Leader of the House; the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, whose work on secondary legislation is exemplary; and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, whose insight on European and environmental matters is invaluable. The excepted noble Lords are not relics of privilege; they are contributors who have enriched this House. Their expertise spans finance, regulation, law and governance, areas where their insights are indispensable. These Members and other noble Lords have brought unparalleled insight to our deliberations.

Can we truly claim that dismissing such colleagues will improve the quality of lawmaking in this House? Will the removal of noble Lords such as the noble Lords, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Lord Cromwell and Lord Remnant—who have tackled complex financial and regulatory issues—enhance scrutiny? Will losing contributions from noble Lords such as my noble friends Lord Roborough, Lord Harlech and Lord Ravensdale on apprenticeships, Welsh affairs and environmental policy be in the public interest?

The legal acumen of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst has been a beacon in navigating difficult questions of law, while my noble friend Lord Courtown not only has the difficult job of being my Whip but has served on the Front Bench with distinction over many years. I ask, therefore, whether the Bill is about improving the House’s effectiveness or is a mechanism to create space for the Government to nominate their own loyalists.

If it is the size of the House that concerns the Government, why does the Bill target the excepted Peers who have actively stepped up to serve? As my noble friend Lord Leigh points out, it was certainly not in pursuit of a title. There are many other groups of Peers whom the Government might look to remove. Several noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, and my noble friend Lord Astor as well as my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, spoke of those Peers who rarely attend and rarely contribute to debates in your Lordships’ House. Other Lords, such as the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Foulkes, mentioned the Lords spiritual.

The report produced by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, recommended an agreed approach between all parties to encourage Peers who may wish to retire to do so. There are 22 Peers currently on leave of absence, some of whom have been so for many years. Retirements by agreement, removing Peers who do not participate or have long been absent from your Lordships’ House—such approaches must be considered in the first instance if the goal truly is to reduce numbers. We are not merely losing Members with this Bill, we are losing wisdom, institutional memory and the dedication of those who continue to serve with distinction. These Peers have much more to offer, and their removal will diminish, not enhance, the effectiveness of this Chamber.

However, the Bill goes beyond practical flaws. It raises serious constitutional concerns; its impact will be to weaken the Cross Benches and the Opposition disproportionately, while leaving the Government Benches almost untouched. The result would be a consolidation of Executive power in this place.

I understand that the Lord Privy Seal may have told an all-Peers meeting that the Cross-Bench Peers should remain at around 20% of the size of the House. That implies that excepted Cross-Bench Peers could remain in the House as life Peers. That was also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. I was not at that meeting, so I ask the Leader to clarify whether this was the case. I am sure that I was not the only one perturbed by the comment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, that it will be a matter for the Prime Minister to decide which Cross-Bench hereditaries might be brought back as life Peers. Can the Lord Privy Seal confirm that that will be the case?

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I believe the noble Baroness just quoted me as saying something about the number of Cross-Benchers. I did not say any such thing; I just said that I hope that some useful hereditary Members would be retained as life Peers. That is all I said.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. I said that I understood the noble Lord’s understanding to be that there would be some Cross-Bench Peers who could be converted to life Peers.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I hope that there will be some; I did not give any number, I believe.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. If the Government accept that some excepted Peers deserve to stay, why not extend that principle to all those who have contributed so much to the work of this House? Does the Lord Privy Seal accept that an unwillingness on the part of the Government to make such a concession gives rise to the impression that the motivations for presenting the Bill are not as principled as the Government would wish us to accept?

If the Bill passes in its current form, the result will be a disproportionate reduction in the number of Cross-Bench and Opposition Peers. We will say goodbye to over 80 noble Lords who come here to scrutinise the Government’s legislation, while the Executive will lose just four of their Peers in this House. If the Bill were seeking to remove any other group of Peers, everyone would see it for what it is. So does the Lord Privy Seal accept that it would be altogether better for the Government to offer life peerages to all those excepted Peers who wish to continue to serve, as my noble friend Lady Goldie has suggested, rather than cherry-pick excepted Peers who may receive life Peerages after the passage of the Bill?

Such an approach would, at the very least, help assuage concerns that many of us have about the Government’s motivations for presenting the Bill. Let us not pretend otherwise: this is not neutral reform. This is about neutering the ability of this House to hold the Government to account, a concern raised by my noble friend Lord Parkinson in relation to the passage of the Football Governance Bill.

The constitutional role of this House can be justified only by the quality of the contribution that we, collectively, are able to make to public life. In the absence of any electoral mandate, we must justify our work through the care with which assist, oppose, scrutinise and amend. Excluding an entire category of Members is profound and fundamentally alters the balance and collective experience of the House. The Bill proposes the removal of many dedicated noble Lords based not on the quality of their contributions but on their collective legal status. It places far greater power for the Prime Minister alone to determine the legislature, a point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, my noble friend Lord Murray, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Judged by legal status alone, none of us can be secure that our future in this place will not be cut short at the whim of the Executive.

This Bill does not honour the past, nor does it secure the future. It weakens this House, betrays constitutional commitments and serves no public good. Reform is necessary, but it must be principled and founded in consultation and consensus. Reform must strengthen Parliament, not diminish it. A Government who fear scrutiny are not strong; they are insecure. A House that loses its independence is not modern; it is diminished. I urge this House and this Government to reflect on the path we are taking. Let us find a better way forward that respects our history, honours our promises and secures the integrity of this Chamber for generations to come.