House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I think our language should be quite moderate tonight. There is no crowing from this side of the House and no attack on the hereditaries. I wholly agree with everything that has been said. I have worked with the hereditaries, having been here 24 years now, after 27 years in the other place.

One of our Members is missing—someone who really should be here tonight—and that is my noble friend Lord Grocott. He is indisposed at the moment; he is probably watching this from his hospital bed. He hopes to be home soon. He sends his regards, and one or two people have spoken to him. I have been told that I cannot read another Member’s notes into the record, but I want to use a few points issued by my noble friend, including on what he did after he ceased to be Chief Whip.

My noble friend is sorry that he cannot be here today to see the completion of this process. He says that the Bill will mean a fine farewell to our wondrous system of hereditary Peer by-elections—something that, of course, many of my new colleagues have not experienced. The process in place over the last quarter of a century gave amusement to many, employment to my noble friend Lord Grocott and complete bewilderment to the public. He told me that, for him, the standout moment came during the 2016 by-election, when there were seven candidates and an electorate of three—twice as many candidates as voters. The winning candidate received all three votes on a 100% turnout.

After that, my noble friend Lord Grocott thought— I shared a room with him, so I have lived a bit of this; your Lordships should see his files—that a Private Member’s Bill might be the solution to the whole system. He thought it would be a doddle. He thought that no one in the House would want to defend hereditary Peers by-elections but, as he admits, he got that wrong. After five attempts, his simple two-clause Bill never got further than Committee, because there were a few people here on a Friday who knew how to speak—without filibustering. At last, he says, the end is in sight. He told me this morning that he will be able to hand over his files to some unsuspecting PhD student, who will have the unenviable task of trying to work out what on earth it was all about.

Finally, my noble friend has a message for anyone who is thinking of introducing a Bill to reform any part of this House: keep it short, keep it simple, keep it focused and, above all, be patient. “Who knows”, he said: “One day, you might end up as a footnote in Erskine May”. It is very sad that he is not here. Of course, he will get to see Hansard pretty quickly, if he is not watching us from his hospital bed, but I thought that we should at least recognise the perseverance he showed and how he entertained us.

I will make one final point. When the clerk read out the results of the ballots for hereditary Peer by-elections, they never gave us any figures. They just said that so-and-so has been elected. We got no information. I would go round the corner to get some figures because we were interested in them. Occasionally, in some of those elections, all of us could participate. I join with my noble friend. I will be sad to see noble Lords leaving. It is hanging over me now. I was born in 1941, so I am with the group that is next in line. With that, I will sit down.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, given that this is the final time we will consider this Bill, I offer some concluding words as a departing hereditary—as a defender of the indefensible who has long championed our presence in this House and has sought to shine a light on the value of our long period of public service. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that that is approaching 900 years for some of us.

The passage of this Bill is regrettable. I believe that this House, Parliament and the country more widely will miss us, not as individuals but as an essential, ancient thread in the complex and fragile constitutional fabric that supports our nation. It is ironic that a Government who pride themselves on improving employee rights and enhancing the security of those who work should choose to offer the longer-serving Members of our constitutional workforce a mere seven weeks’ formal notice of termination—notably less than the statutory minimum. His Majesty’s Government will argue that we have been on notice for 27—or, perhaps, over 100 —years. Yet, as every employment lawyer knows, it is one thing to work under threat of redundancy but quite another for that threat to be formalised, as when this Bill receives its Royal Assent.

However, this is not a matter of employment law. If it were, there would be discriminatory concerns, given the regrettable commonality of protected characteristics among our hereditary Peers. Instead, we serve at His Majesty’s pleasure, summoned pursuant to a writ by which we are commanded to attend this Parliament in Westminster and provide counsel. I am concerned that His Majesty, in losing his longest-serving constitutional counsellors, will be left considerably exposed at a vulnerable time for our hereditary monarchy. I repeat my very real worry that his institution may be next, given the treatment meted out to us, his hereditary partners.

I do not wish to be negative. His Majesty’s Government are to be congratulated on the satisfaction of their manifesto commitment. I was never a fan of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that was sent back to the other place, which would have converted all hereditary Peers into life Peers, so I am glad we are not seeking to urge that again. I believe we should be proud to sit here as embodiments of the hereditary principle that has served our nation for over a millennium. I also believe we should not use that hereditary privilege to secure for ourselves as individuals life peerages that could and should go to people of a more diverse background who may serve the nation somewhat better.

I do not begrudge the many devoted public servants among us who honourably wish to continue to serve in your Lordships’ House after our hereditary right is abolished. The expertise among many hereditary Members will be sorely missed, but there should have been a better way to determine who remains and who goes than the political arm-wrestling that has taken place behind closed doors, and through the Orwellian usual channels, over the past 18 months. Indeed, is it not yet a further irony that the most transparently selected cohort amongst your Lordships, the elected excepted hereditaries, each of whom has been through a publicly scrutinised albeit idiosyncratic by-election process, will be subsumed into the ever-spreading stain of political patronage that, regrettably, characterises the vast majority of appointments to your Lordships’ House? At a time when the composition of this venerable institution is under scrutiny like never before—as a member of the Conduct Committee, I can vouch for the intensity of the brickbats being deployed—are we right to add yet more opacity to our operations?

As many hereditaries have said throughout the passage of the Bill, we hoped that the promise of the 1999 Weatherill amendment would be fulfilled and that the remaining hereditary Peers would depart this House leaving it better constituted than we found it. Unfortunately, that is not the case. We are being removed out of political expedience, with only the loose promise of a modest further reform through the Retirement and Participation Committee in exchange. I fear that will not be enough to satisfy the critics, but I wish the House well in this vital process.

In closing, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for her courtesy and patience in dealing with a matter that I know she has found challenging. However, in the week of International Women’s Day, I put in one final plea: that female succession to our hereditary peerages remains on her agenda when we are gone. I note that, when His Majesty’s Government are doing such important work fighting the scourge of violence against women and girls, it is anathema that we reserve roles anywhere within our society solely to men, particularly roles with some cultural prominence. I am sorry to have failed in ridding us of this misogyny, but I hope your Lordships will be willing to take the matter forward once we are gone.

I will miss this place and would of course love to return, but only on merit, not by dint of my hereditary privilege. Your Lordships might think you have heard quite enough of that, and of Devon.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I echo the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I did not realise he was ill. It is very sad that he is not with us today, and I know we will all wish him the very best recovery from the problems that he has at the moment. I was a great admirer of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, because he was one of the few people on the Labour Benches who wanted to leave the EU when almost all his party wanted to remain in it. I thought that was an act of enormous courage.