Hereditary Peers’ By-elections

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am happy to comment, but I wonder if other noble Lords wish to speak before I do.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

I will go through the short list that I have. I have been notified that those Members who want to speak are the noble Lords, Lord Cormack, Lord Trefgarne, Lord Newby, Lord Balfe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I therefore now call the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

We are clearly a long way from being back to normal. I endorse everything said by my noble friend Lord Cormack, because we need to get back to normal. We could get many more people in this Chamber, but we also need some willpower behind the need to get back to normal. A certain lassitude and reluctance to get things done seems to have descended on us. We certainly should not be having by-elections until we get back to normal. The Procedure and Privileges Committee will meet in December, I believe—certainly before this new Motion expires on New Year’s Eve. The middle of a vacation does not, in any case, seem a very good date for it to expire, particularly since the Deputy Lord Speaker may, in the tradition of his country, be somewhat busy on New Year’s Eve.

I would like the Procedure and Privileges Committee to look at the need for these by-elections and whether we should make time for the Grocott Bill to be heard. I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, had to say, but the Grocott Bill will not remove a single Peer from this House: it allows them to die away, over the course of half a century. Some would say that that is an extremely generous way to treat them, but it has nothing to do with the Conservative Party.

We have to start standing up for ourselves. My noble friend Lord Cormack made reference to the Library and the rule brought in when Queen Victoria created a life Peer, and that was turned down. It goes back a lot further than that, however. I read the Library report, but there was also something in the New Statesman and I asked the Library for an account of what had happened in relation to life Peers. I read a debate from around 1860, I think, and I can inform the House that life peerages go back to the reign of Henry III, in the 13th century.

There have been regular life peerages. They used to end them by chopping off the heads of the Lords when they fell from favour. This is no longer recommended procedure, but I have had advice from an extraordinarily senior source to the effect that the sovereign creates but the House sits, and we would be within our powers to amend our Standing Orders to create a queue for Peers waiting to take their seats, as my noble friend Lord Cormack suggested. The size of the House would be determined and there would be a Burns-style distribution, based perhaps on previous elections or other criteria: there would be an allocation to each party.

At the moment I often look at the ranks of the Labour Party—my former party—and I feel a bit sorry for them, because they could do with strengthening, frankly. Democracy in this House relies on having a strong Opposition, not just strong Conservative Benches; it needs to be much wider than that.

I would therefore like to see this Motion passed and the noble Lord, Lord Burns—or, if he thinks it is a poisoned chalice, someone else—to look, in the way suggested, at the means by which this House can implement the desires it endorsed at the time of the Burns report. We have weapons in our armoury that could be used. Although it saddens me to say so, I do not think that the present Prime Minister will follow our advice unless there is some strength behind it—the ability to say, “No, you cannot do that” and the powers to stop it. Otherwise, we will be ridden roughshod over. I therefore support the Motion. I ask the Procedure and Privileges Committee to consider coming back to this House before the end of December with its thoughts, and that this House look at limiting our numbers, getting a legislative or rule-based way of doing it, and saying to the Government, “Fine, you create, but we will admit”.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

This has been a rather wider-ranging debate than either I or probably the noble Lord, Lord McFall, as Senior Deputy Speaker, anticipated. I agree with the point the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, made about the Prime Minister not listening to advice. I think the only advice he listens to is that of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Cummings. Perhaps if we could persuade him, we might have more success in him treating the House and Parliament with some respect.

I had not expected the debate to go back to the 13th century. The House of Lords sometimes looks backwards rather than forwards, but it does not often go quite so far back. I think this illustrates the scale of the problem. We are dealing with something here and now, and the Motion before us has my full support. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, made the most telling point. If local government elections have been stopped around the country and the public are not entitled to elect, it would be nonsensical for an unelected House to elect one of its few elected Members to this place.

I want to put on record that this is a policy issue. This is not about the merits or otherwise of any individual who serves in this House, by whichever route they come in. All Members of your Lordships’ House are welcomed. In fact, most of us really do not know who are the life Peers and who are the hereditary Peers, except those who make an effort to defend the continuation of the hereditary principle ad infinitum with the temporary position introduced in 1999.

I disassociate myself from some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which is unusual. We all want to get back to working as normally as possible as soon as possible, but we can do so only in realms that make us safe. Indeed, my understanding is that no Member of your Lordships’ House has wanted to speak physically but not been able to attend physically. We have to respect those who for many reasons—whether for travel or because they live in hot-spot areas or for their own medical conditions—wish to participate remotely. I think we do better than the House of Commons in that regard.

Finally, on the comments made about the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, he was unable to be with us today. For very understandable reasons, he would want to be here. I am sorry the noble Lord made that comment. It would be remiss of me not to mention his Bill. It has had the overwhelming support of your Lordships’ House on many occasions. It is not fit for today’s House of Lords to have by-elections for hereditary peerages. The only reason we do not have that Bill, and have the Motion before us today, is that the Government do not want it. We have invited the Government many a time to say, “We will help give this a speedy passage through Parliament”, but because of the processes, a few Peers who do not support it have blocked that Bill with parliamentary vandalism tactics. We will return to that Bill, but I make a plea to the Government. It is a Bill that has the overwhelming support of your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, gave a way forward on the size of the House, and that is one issue, but the Motion before us has nothing to do with that. It is about having a sensible process: we should not have by-elections to your Lordships’ House in the current circumstances. It has my full support.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I have not received notice that anyone else in the Chamber wishes to speak, but does anyone else in the Chamber wish to take part? No. If that is the case, I call the Senior Deputy Speaker to reply.