Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Earl of Leicester Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Earl Leicester (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is an honour to make my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House. I will not dwell on the six generations of the Coke family who, in 162 years of taking their seat—or not—in this House, only mustered three speeches, two of them by my father, concerning the railways, in 1998 and 1999. As you can see, my family, who have the obstinate habit of spelling our name “Coke” and not, as it is pronounced, “Cook”, have not been over- talkative in this House.

An earlier antecedent, Sir Edward Coke, was a Member of Parliament and ultimately rose to become Lord Chief Justice to King James I. He is immortalised in one of the 12 bronze relief panels on the doors of the Supreme Court in Washington DC, where he is seen barring the King from entering Parliament. He defended common law against the divine right of the monarchy. This and other ideas of Coke’s were important to a fledgling republic; indeed, a number of them were written into the US constitution. In the English Civil War our family were, not unnaturally, Parliamentarians.

Perhaps my family was distracted from your Lordships’ House by the business of managing a large estate in Norfolk and seeing that proper use was made of its resources. We are still the custodians of that estate at Holkham, managing it sustainably and to sustain the myriad families that work there and rely on it. I have been up there for nearly three decades and have been wholly responsible for it for the last 15 years. Its prime activities are my main interests: the environment, agriculture, heritage and tourism.

In 2012 we resumed management of the Holkham National Nature Reserve from Natural England. It is arguably the most important NNR in the country. Through positive conservation and effective predator control, it yields large numbers of fledglings that survive to adulthood, and it outperforms many other sites. The greatest success has been the natural colonisation and fledging of more than 435 spoonbills, a species which became extinct in this country 400 years ago. The breeding population has doubled in the last two years. Our population of lapwings, a species that has seen a 57% decline across the UK, is back to what it was 20 years ago. This is all because of subtle management changes, trying different things and not sticking to rigid prescriptions.

While the Government have an ambition to halt declines, Holkham is reversing them. On the farm, the principles of regenerative agriculture have been put into practice this last decade. We are not organic, and probably will not ever be, though I have challenged the farm team to farm without artificial inputs by 2030. This year was the first that no insecticides were used. Nitrogen input on the potatoes was reduced by 22%, having been reduced by 10% in each of the previous two years, but they still, importantly, yielded good yields. With cattle extensively grazing the nature reserve and sheep grazing the cover crops in a six-course rotation, we are relearning the lessons that Coke of Norfolk espoused during the agricultural revolution.

I fervently believe that regenerative agriculture provides one of the main solutions for combating climate change. It is a shame that COP 26 appeared to miss the opportunity to focus on it. The woodland is actively managed for profit, amenity and increased biodiversity, using the principles of continuous cover forestry. One of my passions these last 25 years has been renewable energy. We have invested in ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps, biomass boilers, solar and a large, 2.5-megawatt anaerobic digester that pumps gas directly into the national grid. We have not invested in wind power, principally for aesthetic reasons; anyway, there are plenty more effective wind turbines 15 miles off the Norfolk coast.

Living in Holkham Hall, one of the 10 treasure houses of England, still replete with a full and much-cherished collection from the Grand Tour, I hope to speak authoritatively on heritage matters. My degree at the University of Manchester was in history of art. After university, I spent six years in the Army. We still retain a great number of cottages, and for these we operate an ethical housing policy, letting to local people and key workers only as we attempt to retain social cohesion and village life in a popular holiday destination. The estate has embraced tourism and leisure in the last 25 years and operates a holiday park—the recipient of the David Bellamy gold award for over 20 years—and a small hotel, the Victoria Inn. We run events and cafes. I have worked in nearly all of them.

I am president of Visit East of England and a board member of ALVA, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. None of this would be possible without the wonderful team we employ. They are our greatest asset—well trained, welcoming, espousing great values, employed for their attitude and empowered to make decisions. We have been a real living wage employer since 2017, with 290 employees on the payroll at the end of October. Personally, I tend towards a contrarian view and generally support the underdog, hence my dogged support of Norwich City Football Club. I like to challenge, and I often ask, “Why?”—perhaps too many times.

I apologise for the digression from the Bill we are discussing. I welcome the revival of the prerogative power to dissolve and call a new Parliament. This returns us to the best constitutional practices. Prerogative powers and constitutional conventions are a particular feature of our constitution. They provide the necessary flexibility and agility for our parliamentary democracy. The events of the 2017-19 Parliament demonstrated the negative impact the 2011 Act had on our parliamentary democracy and it led to paralysis. In these circumstances, the Government were unable to secure their business or return the issue to the electorate to break the deadlock because Parliament was unwilling to withdraw confidence or support an election. This meant bespoke legislation was needed in 2019 to have another election. The Bill seeks to put in place arrangements that deliver increased legal, constitutional and political certainty around the process for the Dissolution of Parliament and the calling of a new Parliament.

I am hugely grateful for the warm and kind welcome I have received from all quarters of this House, regardless of political hue. I thank the staff of the House, who have been without fail all hugely helpful to me, from the discretion of the doorkeepers to the forbearance of the dining room staff when I had forgotten to pay for my dinner. I thank all those who enabled me to be here today—my family and wife in particular, and the team I leave managing Holkham—as we strive to enact our vision to make it the most pioneering and sustainable rural estate in the UK. I hope your Lordships will approve that a Coke, after 174 years of near-total silence, should once again try to stir the broth of public debate in this House.