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

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be helpful if we could intervene from these Benches just once. I have to say that just at the moment I do not feel like a shadow Minister. I feel rather like Alice through the looking glass, as though I had fallen through a door and discovered myself—I will not say at the Mad Hatter’s tea party—somewhere in quite a different century.

On the so-called promise made in 1999, women of my age—or rather six months younger than me—were promised throughout their working lives that they would have a pension at the age of 60; they then discovered, unprepared, and without the money, that it would be 67. This House let that through, so it is quite possible to change what has been promised by an Act of Parliament. It is right to do it by an Act of Parliament rather than any other method, but let us not have any of this, when we consider what has been taken away from women. I am one of the very lucky ones—the last cohort of women who got their pension at 60, which was a long time ago—but a whole swathe of women have lost out.

Along with some colleagues, I met a group of Slovak MPs here in the House earlier this week. As very often when women politicians get together, we fell to discussing female representation in our various Parliaments. I have to say that they were completely mystified as to how this House—with the advantage of appointments and therefore not having to worry about whether the electors always choose equally—had not moved further towards female emancipation. I then pointed out that, with one exception, we had a caucus of 92 men who would always remain here because the system was that, when they left, they would be replaced by another man, and nothing that anyone else could do would alter that. They were a little mystified.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

I am afraid that I have two sons and two daughters, so the two sons would have to go first with no male heir for the daughters to get here; but there are those possibilities and several others here in that position.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

There were several others but, as we know, the figure has gone down from four to one; that is why I said that, with one exception, they are all men. For most on the list, as we have already heard, we are talking about men; in a House of only 400 or 500 active Members, 91 places will always be held for men. That may not make others ashamed, but it makes me ashamed and I am not even one of the people who are here by virtue of my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-uncle or anyone else, noble though those people were in their own right. I did not come here having inherited that right through the attributes of some earlier generation. That is what those who stand in the way of this Bill are trying to retain. They are trying to preserve, with some exceptions, the right of sons of people whose attributes 100 or 200 years ago were notable to have a seat in Parliament.

I do not believe that is the right way for us to choose anyone. I do not believe Picasso’s child should be recognised as a top painter simply because their father was. I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, has children, but surely they should not be considered a top ballerina just because their mother was. Yet we think that legislators should be here by virtue of their fathers, grandfathers or earlier forebears. I am not embarrassed by this, but I am embarrassed for those who are here for that reason now—nothing in this Bill will alter the position of those here at the moment—that they should seek to preserve a system whereby, with some exceptions, the sons of people whose forebears were given a seat here should have it, and that they should try to continue this ludicrous system.

We in the Opposition say: this Bill has our support. What we are seeing is a filibuster to try to undermine, talk out and stop the Bill, which will alter something fundamental to our constitution. That is not good enough. It belittles this House, and I think it belittles the hereditaries who are here to vote for the continuation of this system.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, perhaps I could intervene briefly at this stage to restate the Government’s position on the Bill. I begin by commending the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on steering his Bill through the obstacle course in Committee and reaching Report, where there are still a number of hurdles in front of him. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that I am a life Peer but a hereditary Baronet. I hope that does not confuse his rather binary approach to these issues.

It is clear that many noble Lords wish to see the end of the by-elections, but, despite the oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, he has not achieved total unanimity. A number of my noble friends, and in earlier exchanges some Cross-Benchers, believe that hereditary Peers should remain, in line with the commitment given at the time, until we have comprehensive reform. I pay tribute to the role that the hereditaries play in our proceedings, as they have a higher participation rate than us lifers.

As the Bill has proceeded through your Lordships’ House, the Government have not obstructed it, nor will we. On the contrary, my noble friend the Chief Whip has been exceptionally generous in the amount of time he has allocated to this Private Member’s Bill, in a field where there are many contenders. While we have some reservations about the Bill, our position is actually academic, as the chances of it reaching the statute book in this Session are, frankly, small, however many meaningful votes are held. The Government’s view is that our energies would be better spent in taking forward the recommendations of the Burns report, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Elton, which I believe is a more effective way of getting our numbers down than abolishing the by-elections. The Prime Minister has assisted in this process by showing commendable restraint in her nominations to your Lordships’ House, which has caused a lot of distress among former Members of Parliament.

On this particular amendment, noble Lords will know that the House of Lords Appointment Commission was established in 2000 to make nominations for membership of your Lordships’ House to the Cross Benches. It is also responsible for vetting the propriety of all nominations to this House, including candidates for party-political membership. We believe that it does an excellent job and have no plans to make it statutory. As was said earlier, I do not think that amendment sits easily with the main purpose of the Bill. Having set out the Government’s position, I do not plan to intervene again, unless provoked beyond endurance.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, to avoid an unnecessary intervention by a politically appointed Peer, I am a hereditary Peer who believes firmly in a democratically elected Parliament in both Houses. I have absolutely no financial interest to declare as to whether the by-elections continue or not. There is no financial interest at all.

It is basically a failure of the democratic principle for the head of the Executive branch of the Government—in other words, the Prime Minister—to be able to influence the appointment of people to a part of the legislature that passes the laws that should be controlling him or her. That is the basic problem. The proposal of an appointments commission, when combined with Amendments 58, 59 and so on, goes some way to correcting that dangerous anomaly in our form of democratic government. It must be totally independent of the Executive, especially as many Members of the other place are Ministers—even more nowadays—and if they reduce the numbers there then the proportion will be even worse. It can be extremely difficult for them to know which hat they are wearing when they are passing legislation that will affect them. Are they legislators or members of the Executive? That concerns me.

I have always said that this House should be principally elected by the public. Many Members of another place agree with that principle; back in 1998, they held several votes on the subject and could not reach a decision on the question of appointed versus democratically elected. The real challenge is that the democrats want both Houses of Parliament to be elected but the Commons supremacists want this House to be appointed, because then they can take away its power as they are the ones with democratic authority, and this House will eventually lose its power over the years. The Prime Minister loses their power to reward people under both proposals, which is part of the problem.

Interestingly, the increase in the number of elections taking place now indicates that, were the Bill to pass, the hereditary Peers would die back to very few over a much shorter period than people seem to think. That would remove all incentive for what we were promised in 1999, which was further democratic reform of this House. All noble Lords who believe in the democratic principle should remember that, and therefore vote for something that does it. That is why the amendment is vital: it would give us an independent appointments commission that was totally outside any influence by the Executive of the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rennard]

The noble Earl is well aware of our position in support of having a properly constituted appointments commission on a statutory basis, but that is not the purpose of the Bill. The purpose of the amendment seeking to put forward that idea, which we have long supported, is simply to prevent proper consideration of the abolition of hereditary Peers’ by-elections, which continue to bring the House into disrepute. Such interventions seeking to delay progress are further bringing the House into disrepute.

[The Earl of Erroll]

So how on earth does the noble Lord hope to get what he wants to achieve? He will not be able to sponsor a Bill to get it through. This is his only chance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

I think Brenda from Bristol might be keen to take part in this election, because she currently has no say over any Member of this House. For the first time, Brenda from Bristol would have the opportunity to nominate and vote for somebody to sit alongside the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. She would give thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and to me for making it possible, because under the independent Appointments Commission that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is proposing, Brenda from Bristol might well be nominated, whereas she stands very little chance of Mrs May noticing her, which is the only way to get into this place at the moment.

[The Earl of Erroll]

If I may assist the noble Lord, funnily enough, a countrywide election could be handled online electronically. That would be quite an interesting prospect.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the noble Earl is very much into these high-tech solutions. Being old-fashioned and believing that people vote by putting crosses on ballot papers, I do not necessarily go the full way with these revolutionary suggestions, but that might be possible.

I come back to the point about this issue being fundamental, not peripheral. I can tell your Lordships that this issue was considered when the reforms of 1999 were considered. I was in No. 10 when we considered it. The obvious vulnerability to which we were open when we removed the hereditary Peers was that we would be creating a wholly nominated House, and how could we justify the only source of nominations to that House being the Prime Minister? What we did was a classic English compromise. Remember that before the independent Appointments Commission came, the Cross-Benchers were nominated by the Prime Minister too. Let me tell your Lordships, if I may choose my words euphemistically, that the selection was not always uninfluenced by what line those nominees might take in your Lordships’ House on matters of state. Noble Lords might be scandalised by that idea—I can see scandal written on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—but I am afraid these considerations took place. That is why a compromise was reached whereby the independent Members would be appointed by the Appointments Commission, but it was too much for my then boss, Tony Blair, to agree that the party Members should be. There were very big debates about it, particularly about whether there should at least be a role for an independent commission in reviewing the bona fides of those nominated by the party leaders because, again, if I may choose my words euphemistically, sometimes—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I shall make one very short point: what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has misunderstood in all of this is that although I oppose this Bill, I am prepared to accept it in exchange for an appointments commission, which I think would be extremely sensible. With that, I finish my brief intervention.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, briefly, I think we should look at rejigging the balance between the parties represented here, because freezing the 1999 position is silly. I suspect that when we get to Amendment 9, that is the one I shall support. They are not grouped properly, but I pre-warn noble Lords that I think they are interesting and we should look at them.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, this is the fifth amendment of 61 that we have to consider. What has been happening is a complete abuse and I am shocked that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who has been here since he was very young and has held high office on many occasions, should be party to this filibuster. I am not going to waste the House’s time by responding to every amendment; I am simply going to recommend, as the sponsor of this Bill, that every single amendment is resisted. I appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne: even at this stage we have an hour and a quarter left, which should be easily enough to dispose of these amendments, all of which wreck the Bill. He has the opportunity to wreck the Bill quite legitimately by voting against Third Reading after this stage. That is the proper way to do it: the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will perhaps nod in assent to that. If you object to the Bill in principle, you vote against Third Reading. So, please, I appeal to him—for anyone who is watching to make sense of what is happening here—that he does not move the rest of his amendments and we get on with the next business.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, I should have advised the House, for which I apologise, that if Amendments 12, 13 and 14 are agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 15 to 31 due to pre-emption.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I support Amendments 12, 32 and 33. Funnily enough, on the subject of the declaration of interests, this is one which would potentially remove me in the readjustment and rebalancing of the 90 hereditary Peers who stay here to try to ensure further democratic reform. I am quite happy for that to happen if it will move us forwards in getting a democratic House of Lords. This is where the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was absolutely spot on.

There is one very useful thing in Amendment 32, which states:

“In exercising its functions, the Commission must ensure … overall party balance in the House of Lords reflects the share of vote secured by the main political parties at the general election”.


The share of the vote would be the number of votes cast overall, and would not reflect the number of MPs in the House of Commons—so you get your proportional representation at least somewhere in Parliament. I am sure the Liberal Democrats will be very pleased with that, because they have been gunning for it for years. That could be a good start and could indicate the way forwards for democracy when we finally start electing both Houses of Parliament.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I do not know why my noble friend Lord Trenchard was let off by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, from declaring who or what he was, but he is obviously a favoured person. I am a life Peer; I do not know whether I should declare—or indeed whether it is too presumptuous to declare—that I am a kinsman of the Earl Marshal, the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk. We share the same name and the same coat of arms; I thought that perhaps for the sake of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I should just mention that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, the noble Lord keeps banging on about how the hereditary Peers should not be here, it is appalling, and so on. At the previous general election, most MPs stood for parties which agreed that there should be further democratic reform of the Lords, and a Bill was tabled to do this in 2012—I think it proposed 80% elected. For some reason, it did not go all the way through the House of Commons, but there was basically a will to have democratic reform of the Lords, including in the noble Lord’s party. Why on earth he is now trying to act against his party’s manifesto and most MPs at the previous election, I am not sure.

[Lord Howard of Rising]

I wish to quote from that same 1968 debate—