House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Ben Spencer and Nick Thomas-Symonds

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

After the past 14 years, they now show a new-found enthusiasm for reform and change.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will give way once more, and then I need to make some progress.

[Dr Spencer]

The Minister is generous in giving way. There is a fertile debate on this side of the House, and the Government should reflect on the fact that Opposition Members tend to think independently. Does he not think that the idea that a step-by-step process will work at all is for the birds?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I cannot comment on the coherence of the Opposition in the course of that process. What we have seen so far is a pretty incoherent effort, but perhaps it will improve when we hear from the shadow Minister.

This Bill is about making immediate, long-overdue progress. The House of Lords existed for centuries as a nearly entirely hereditary House. There was an attempt to introduce life peers as long ago as 1869, with a further attempt to introduce life peers and remove the hereditary element in 1888. Despite those efforts, it was only with the passage of the Life Peerages Act 1958 that non-judicial life peers began to join the other place.

Some 40 years later, a Labour Government introduced a Bill to end the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The events that smoothed the Bill’s passage led that Government to accept an amendment on the principle of the removal of hereditary peers. The amendment retained 92 hereditary peers on a temporary basis, until further reforms to the other place were brought forward. Despite attempts at further reform, that temporary measure is still in place.