House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, this is the only opportunity I have to say that it is not often I would do anything which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, did not approve of. But I voted against the Motion and I want to make the point that it was the only way in which the House could send a message to the Government, and to people outside, that the House is greatly in favour of the Bill going forward.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I am terribly sorry to intervene but the reason I did not vote on it was exactly the opposite. The Motion actually referred to regret about the Burns report; it would not in fact have prevented the Committee stage or any part of the Bill. It expressed regret that it had not been done, so, having read the Motion, I do not think that it conveyed exactly what people thought.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I shall try again. I support these amendments because, unlike the opinion expressed by other noble Lords, I do not consider that the Bill represents a modest change. It is a very significant change. As my noble friend Lord Hague said in his speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in February 1998,

“The Government is now embarking on what is potentially the most damaging step of all— removing the main independent element in the House of Lords by excluding the hereditary peers. Mr Blair’s justification is his dislike of the hereditary principle, although he sees no contradiction”—

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[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

Before the noble Lord sits down, can I just say in reply that, if he reads the newspapers tomorrow or listens to “Yesterday in Parliament”, he will hear that the way in which the House demonstrated that it wanted to support the Grocott Bill was through that Bill.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I want to say one thing on Amendment 59, which is the last one in this group and is a non-destructive amendment, which is why intrigued me.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Erroll]

The habit has started in the last few years of interrupting people in the middle, which slows everything up.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Will the noble Earl declare an interest?

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[The Earl of Erroll]

I am a hereditary Peer. It makes no difference, actually, because I am not about trying to preserve things. I know that I will not be thrown out. Lots of people seem to think that it is a bribe to us that we will not be thrown out. If the noble Lord reads it, Amendment 59 shows the intention of the Bill, which is very simple—to change this into an appointed House over the long term without having to go to a vote of both Houses of Parliament. The point about this Bill is that this is a backdoor way of ending up with an appointed House. It might as well declare that intention on the front of the Bill. I know that it is not about throwing us out.

The one thing that I would like to say to the noble Lord is that it is totally irrelevant whether I am hereditary or not, because I have no interest in this. It is for the future. The only interest that I have is for my grandchildren to be able to elect the people who pass legislation, and if you put this on the front of the Bill it is non-destructive but it points out the intention of the whole thing.

I shall raise a quick point of interest, and then I shall sit down. The hereditary principle, I am told, was originally invented to stop the King being able to pack this place with cronies. So you established the great families as de facto people in very powerful positions. That is why we have the Earl Marshall and people like that. That is how the hereditary principle started; whether it works is another matter, and I heartily like the fact that we have an independent Appointments Commission bringing people into this House that is not through the political system. That is what worries me, and it is the reason why we should have proper reform, with most of the House elected, before we go down this route—otherwise we are not going to do it.

[The Earl of Caithness]

I would also like to speak to Amendment 59, which is in my name and grouped with this, because what the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has said is absolutely right, and it is an important point that we will come to.

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[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, there are arrangements for declaring interests set out in Standing Orders. I do not think that what the noble Lord proposes is required by Standing Orders. If he would like to arrange for the Standing Orders to be changed, that, of course, would be another matter.

As I was saying, I believe there is a powerful argument for running all by-elections on an all-House basis, as those for the so-called officeholders are at present. Also, the list of candidates for hereditary Peer by-elections has, I think, only one female on it. I have a Private Member’s Bill waiting in the list behind the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to change all that. I hope your Lordships will support it.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, this is all about the by-election process. If the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, would like to declare how he got here and what he did to get here, I would be very happy.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I want to speak on behalf of my noble friend. He served as a Member of Parliament with great distinction for many years and looked after the interests of thousands of people; he deserved to get here.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Thank you for that but in the same way that we have to declare interests, the noble Lord should also have to. I am sure that he has served with great distinction but does that, towards the end of the career, qualify him for going automatically into the House of Lords?

Leaving that aside, I go back to the nub of what I want to talk about, which is the by-elections. I have been reading the 1999 Act. As far as I can make out, the whole thing, including the party proportions, is set in our Standing Orders; it is not in the primary legislation. So, actually, as an interim measure, I would have thought the first thing we should do is amend our Standing Orders to make them more sensible. I know that there will be changes in the party balance but I think that is right. Having done that, we can then deal with the democratic issue of whether or not we slowly become an appointed House. I realise that for some people that will not be acceptable, because it might result in there being less pressure to change to an appointed House more quickly. I personally think that we should look first at our Standing Orders. That is what this series of amendments is about. However, I do not think they need to be in primary legislation to achieve that.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, unfortunately, the contributions that have been made have to be dealt with even though they clearly do not address this group of amendments. Changing the Standing Orders does not alter the fundamental reason why these by-elections must end. A key argument, which has already been made, is that changing the Standing Orders will not alter the gender balance of the people who sit in the Lords currently as hereditary Peers. As my noble friend rightly reminded us, people are watching this debate and, I guess, wondering what on earth is going on, so we need to remind them of the facts. Of the 92 hereditary Peers in the House at the moment, one is a woman and she supports my Bill. It is worth remembering as well that in the 19 years since the original Act was passed, the situation has got worse. There were four women among the original 92, so the whole operation has got worse during the 19 years of this temporary measure. It has no prospect of getting better under the present system, and Standing Orders do not touch this because, of the 198 people who are currently on the register of hereditary Peers, just one, coincidentally, is a woman. None of these amendments addresses that. Do we really say that in 2018 we should continue with a system, even when the size of the House is diminishing overall, in which 92 protected places are virtually exclusively male? I hope that before anyone speaks on any of these amendments to try to improve the unimprovable, which is the current system of by-elections, they will address that problem and why they continue to support an effectively men-only 92 bloc that cannot be reduced, and which will not be reformed unless my Bill goes forward.