House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention, but, with the greatest of respect, it is for the Leader of the Opposition to nominate those whom they consider appropriate for life peerages. On phasing out, the measures in the 1999 Act were meant only to be temporary ones. Twenty-five years later, we are still having these debates.

Clause 2 abolishes the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in relation to hereditary peerage claims. I appreciate that the subject of hereditary peerage claims may be a novel one to hon. Members and one that was not discussed on Second Reading, so let me provide a clear explanation of what hereditary peerage claims are, why they are mentioned in the Bill, and why the Government are proposing to remove the jurisdiction of the House of Lords. A hereditary peerage claim—or peerage claim, as I will refer to them—is when a person seeks to be formally recognised as the holder of the title of a hereditary peerage. Usually, the claimant of the peerage is the undisputed heir and is simply entered on the Roll of the Peerage following an application to the Lord Chancellor.

However, there can be some cases where the claim is disputed or complex. Currently, these cases are usually referred to the other place to advise the Crown on how to determine the claim. The House also confirms undisputed successions of Irish peerages in parallel with an application to the Lord Chancellor. Complex or disputed peerage claims occur very infrequently. There have been fewer than 10 claims considered by the other place in the past 50 years. Given that the Bill removes the final link between hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords, it is no longer appropriate for these issues to be dealt with by the other place. That is why the Bill would abolish the jurisdiction of the other place in relation to peerage claims. The intention is that future complex or disputed peerage claims that would otherwise have been considered by the other place will instead be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council under section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833.

Undisputed successions to Irish peerages will, like other types of peerage, continue to be dealt with by the Lord Chancellor. As hon. Members know, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is made up of justices of the Supreme Court and other senior judges, already has a well-established constitutional role in advising the sovereign and is the appropriate body to consider these matters. The Government have discussed this matter with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is content to take on this function. Therefore, the Government believe that, following the removal of the hereditary peers, it is appropriate for the other place’s jurisdiction in relation to peerage claims to come to an end.

I thought that it would be helpful to briefly address amendment 26 to this clause tabled by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart). The amendment makes it explicit that the jurisdiction for considering peerage claims would be transferred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Government’s position is that it is unnecessary to expressly state in the Bill the transfer of the jurisdiction of peerage claims. That is because, as I have set out, matters such as peerage claims can already be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by the Crown under section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833. I therefore urge the hon. Member not to press his amendment.

Turning to other parts of the Bill, clause 3 makes consequential amendments to reflect the repeal of section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999, and more generally on the basis that there will no longer be any Members of the House by virtue of a hereditary peerage. The amendments reflect the fact that certain provisions in the Peerage Act 1963, the House of Lords Act 1999, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 are now redundant as a result of this legislation.

Clause 4 sets out the territorial extent of the Bill and when it will commence. An amendment or repeal made by the Bill has the same extent as the provision amended or repealed. Subject to that, the Bill extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

There are those who believe that this reform is about making the House of Lords more democratic. Clearly, the Minister cannot be among them, because these provisions do not seem to make it any more democratic in a meaningful way. Can she confirm, therefore, that she is not in favour of a more democratically elected House of Lords?

[Ellie Reeves]

This legislation is the first step of reform of the House of Lords, as set out in our manifesto. In our manifesto, we committed to this reform immediately, which is why we are discussing it today.

On commencement, the Bill will come into force at the end of the Session of Parliament in which it receives Royal Assent. If the Bill passes in this Session, hereditary peers who are Members of the other place will depart at the end of the Session. The timing of the implementation of the Bill ensures the delivery of the manifesto commitment for immediate reform in a timely fashion while not undermining the business of the House with the sudden departure of a number of hereditary peers in the middle of a parliamentary Session.

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[Alex Burghart]

It is very generous of the hon. Gentleman to say that the Prime Minister will create 40 peers at his command—I had no idea that the hon. Gentleman’s career was progressing at such a rate. We all know that that is not what is happening here; we all know that, in the coded words of the Minister, it is goodbye to the 88 hereditary peers, whose voices will not be heard any more. Our position is that it is time for a constitutional conference to consider these matters, and that the major issue is how to have an upper House that does not challenge the primacy of the Commons in conducting proper scrutiny of Government legislation in order to improve it.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend, who is making a speech in the spirit of his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), on why the legislation does not pass the efficacy test that I set for it on Second Reading. There is no suggestion that it will make the House of Lords a more effective chamber. A reasonable test of the legislation is whether it improves the status quo. If it does not, why on earth are we pursuing it? Indeed, why are we even debating it?

[Alex Burghart]

As ever, wisdom from the Deepings. The truth is that this will not make the upper House a better Chamber for scrutiny. All it will do is remove some of the Labour party’s opponents from that House.

The Labour party promised in its manifesto that

“The next Labour government will…bring about an immediate modernisation”

of the Lords. The manifesto promised that that modernisation would consist of a mandatory retirement age of 80, a new participation requirement, a strengthening of

“the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed”

from that House, reform of the appointments process, and improvement of

“the national and regional balance of the second chamber.”

Although we on the Conservative Benches might not agree with those proposals, the Labour party promised to introduce them immediately, but the only immediate modernisation being undertaken is to remove a group of hard-working and diligent peers, including 33 Cross Benchers and their Convenor, for the crime of not being Labour party placements.

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[Sarah Olney]

Well, how polite of the right hon. Gentleman to say so. Obviously, I do not personally recall what happened in 2007. What we are trying to establish today are the steps that can be taken to reform the House of Lords. We very much support the step that we are debating today—that first step upon which, as the Minister said in her opening remarks, there is broad consensus. We want to see broader reform of the House of Lords and we want the Government to bring forward further proposals in due course. New clause 7 is about pushing them to produce those further proposals in a timely fashion, so that we can hold that debate in this Parliament and progress the cause of measures on which we can find consensus across the House.

[Sir John Hayes]

Given that the hon. Lady’s amendments are not likely to be passed, I assume that, on the grounds of logic and consistency, she will vote against Third Reading of the unamended Bill. As I said earlier, and she implicitly conceded, as it stands, the Bill does not make the House of Lords one ounce, one iota, one fraction more democratic.

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We intend to support the Bill, because we want to see the abolition of the hereditary peers; that is very much part of what the Liberal Democrats want. However, we want to see more; we want to go further; we want to see broader reforms. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that I have heard not only an appetite from all sides to support the Bill—as the Minister said, there is broad consensus across the House for that—but a great zeal on the Tory Benches for further reform. I therefore do not understand why there would not be broad support for my new clause, which calls on the Government to enshrine in this Bill a commitment to go further, because that is clearly what so many Tory Members are saying they would like to see.

With so much trust in politics having been destroyed by the chaos of the previous Conservative Government, we must take this opportunity to underscore the integrity of Parliament, with transparency and democratic authority in our second Chamber. We are grateful to the Government for introducing this legislation so early in the Parliament. Fundamentally, the Liberal Democrats do not believe that there is space in a modern democracy for hereditary privilege.

New clause 7 would impose a duty on Ministers to take forward proposals to secure a democratic mandate for the House of Lords through introduction of directly elected Members. Around the world, trust in the institutions and levers of the democratic process have too often frayed over recent years. In our democracy, we must ensure that the vital link between the people and their institutions remains strong. A democratic mandate is central to that mission. Reform of our upper Chamber has been a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy. We must do all we can to restore public trust in politics after the chaos of the previous Conservative Government. By introducing a democratic mandate for Members of the House of Lords, we can ensure that trust in politics is strengthened.

The disregard with which the previous Conservative Government treated the public’s trust threatened to erode faith in our democracy. The Bill is an opportunity to underline our commitment to democratic values and to begin to rebuild that trust. The new clause would strengthen the democratic mandate of the second Chamber, and Liberal Democrats call on the Government to support it as well our calls for wider reform to modernise our electoral system.

We want to strengthen democratic rights and participation by scrapping the Conservative party’s voter ID scheme.

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[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making an incredibly powerful point. He is absolutely right. He is a veteran of these arguments and knows how it will go because we have seen it before. This is the moment. There is not going to be another one—this is it.

I turn to new clauses 1 and 2, which are the most important of the ones that I have tabled. It is fundamentally unfair that we still have a situation where a bloc of clerics have a right and a say over our legislation—over how my constituents live. I cannot see how in today’s world that can be justified. We have not seen arguments come forward as to why these 26 bishops should be defended.

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I will give way in a moment.

As an Anglican, I cannot see why I have a right to greater representation than my children, who are Catholics. I am often told, “The bishops have been there since the Reformation.” Well, lots of things were happening around the Reformation that I am not that keen to see happening today. I appreciate that the Paymaster General may have a different view on that and may want to revive some of those age-old traditions, but I do not. This is an opportunity not to jeopardise the Bill but to improve it. I recognise that the proposal was not in the Labour party manifesto, but I ask Members across the House to consider whether, in all conscience, they should vote for this anomaly to continue to exist. From my perspective, this is an issue of conscience, and of what we think and feel is right.

Those 26 bishops do not come from every component part of the United Kingdom—they do not come from Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but only from England. The composition of those bishops is probably not reflective of today’s world. I feel it is fundamentally wrong that, because of the statute of 1847, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Winchester have a right to legislate on my constituents. I believe that they have an absolute right to influence the course of public debate, but from the pulpit, not in Parliament.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend allows me, on that basis, to give him a short lecture on the character of conservatism. He needs to understand that the collective wisdom of ages, vested in great institutions like the monarchy—which, by the way, is hereditary—the Church, this Parliament and the small institutions that Burke called the “little platoons”, transmitted in age-old form is always more important than the fads and fashions of any one generation at any point in time. If he understood that, he would understand why he is a Conservative.

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[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Chair.

I would like to speak in support of the Bill, which I believe is long overdue. I thank the Minister for her contribution and welcome in particular her warm words on the importance of the Bill as a clear manifesto commitment to reform how the other place functions as “an immediate modernisation”. Since the groundbreaking House of Lords Act 1999 was passed by a Labour Government, there has been no substantive reform to the hereditaries in the other place despite an obvious public appetite to do so. Indeed, a study conducted by University College London’s constitution unit found that only 6% of respondents supported the current system.

Before having the enormous privilege of representing the people of Bolton West, I spent over a decade tackling bribery and corruption. Time and again, I have seen how trust is developed only when those responsible for decision making are truly held accountable. I will focus on the word accountability, which is gravely lacking with the remaining hereditaries. Over the course of my working career, it has become clear that the UK has an important role to play on the global stage as a world leader on political integrity, but this country’s reputation as a well-governed and, frankly, clean jurisdiction has been degraded over recent years. Countries that previously welcomed our counsel with open arms now look on it with scorn. That is why this long-overdue reform matters to me and why I passionately support the Government on the Bill.

I am sure there are some hereditary peers who undertake hard work and I have no doubt that many have a genuine commitment to public service, but the concept of hereditary peerages, hereditary privilege and being able to legislate for life merely by dint of birth belongs in the same breath as second jobs, lobbying scandals and the revolving door. It is an anachronism that needs to go. Contrary to the protestations from Conservative Members, the Bill is not about spite. Rather, it is about improving trust and accountability in our politics. The public expect high standards from our legislature, but the simple fact is that too many hereditary peers do not play a proper role in our democracy. We made that point in the Labour manifesto earlier this year, which Opposition Members will no doubt note resulted in a resounding mandate across the country to deliver change.

[Sir John Hayes]

The facts do not bear out what the hon. Gentleman has said. If he looks at the record, he will see that hereditary peers tend, proportionally, to speak more often in debates, they tend to be more involved in tabling amendments, and more of them tend to be Whips. They are more active, in proportional terms, than the appointees—who also, by the way, lack democratic legitimacy.

[Phil Brickell]

I thank the right hon. Member for his contribution, but he will note that I did not mention activity or participation in the other House. I mentioned democracy and democratic accountability, which hereditary peers do not have.

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[Pete Wishart]

What I can say categorically to the hon. Gentleman is that there is nobody who has given one single penny to the Scottish National party— [Interruption.] Again, I appeal to people watching, if they want to give us money, please do so, but one thing we can never do—we never have and never will—is, in return, offer a place in our legislature or the ability to govern in this country. We do not do that, we cannot do that and we will never, ever do that.

Let me point to the scale of the difficulty of the problem when it comes to the donors. Some 68 out of 284 nominations from political parties between 2013 and 2023 were for political donors who had handed over £58 million to one of the three main parties. Over the course of that decade, some 12 of them gave £1 million. Now that might sound familiar to some Labour Members—£1 million is what people used to give to the Labour party under Tony Blair in the early 2000s to get a place in the House of Lords. Come on! Where is inflation when it comes to this? We would expect it to cost £1.5 million to get a place in the House of Lords now, but the going rate is seemingly still about £1 million.

Cash for honours was a disaster for Labour. It was absolutely awful. We saw the spectacle of a sitting Prime Minister being interviewed by the police about the donations that were being given to the Labour party. Those donations were interpreted as inducements to secure a place in the House of Lords. The Prime Minister was interviewed under caution and two of his personal staff were arrested. After that experience, we would be right to expect some sort of clarity in their thinking to take place. They could have decided never to get into that type of territory again—that they would do everything possible to ensure that money was taken out of politics, so that there would never be a whiff of suspicion that such a thing would happen again. But not a bit of it. Donors still go into the House of Lords, money still goes into the political party, and the public want it stopped.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I intervened merely to say this: many people might assume that he is being foolish for raising issues of financial shenanigans, mismanagement, concealing money, bribes and so on, but I think that he is just being brave. Just as a matter of record, I want it to be known by the whole House that this man is not a fool; he is a very courageous man.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that. I will never again chastise him for quoting Proust in the House of Commons. I am sorry that I did that to him last time around.

That covers the donors. The other amendment that I managed to get included—again, this was a surprise to me—is one related to cronies. It would deny the Prime Minister the power to appoint people to the House of Lords. The Prime Minister has a prerogative that is almost unknown to any other western industrial leader—that he is exclusively responsible for appointing so many people to one part of our legislature. I think that something like 30% to 40% of the total membership of the House of Lords has now been appointed by a Prime Minister—by one man. That would make a tinpot dictator in a banana republic blush. He would want those powers in his hands immediately, but we have them in the United Kingdom. We allow a Prime Minister to determine—on his own—so many people in our legislature. That must come to an end. Of course, the temptation for the Prime Minister is to appoint his friends, to reward those who have been denied a place, to compensate people for losing their positions, to encourage people to take a role, but mainly it is to make sure that the donors are rewarded.

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[Richard Baker]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point—I could not agree more. It risks derailing the Bill and the potential to make urgent progress on this particular issue, which it is so important that we as a House deal with this evening.

As other Members have said—I want to make this point very clearly—this reform is about principle, not about personalities. In my own career before taking up my seat in this House, I received the support and assistance of hereditary Members of the House of Lords in many campaigns on a whole range of matters of public policy, and I valued that support. Since my election, I have had the opportunity to speak with hereditary peers who have brought significant experience to the House of Lords, who have been diligent and committed, and who have greatly valued their role in the House. Nevertheless, it is clearly the case that in advance of further reforms, membership of the House of Lords should be based on experience and expertise, not birthright. The fact that there are still no female hereditary peers is another example of how that approach to membership of the House of Lords cannot align with what I believe should be the shared goal of making the House more inclusive and representative of wider society.

Earlier in the debate, we heard some contributions suggesting that passing this Bill would somehow jeopardise the work of the House of Lords or reduce its effectiveness. There will still be over 700 peers left, so I do not think we are in danger of a shortage of peers in this Parliament. I believe that this reform must be taken forward now, and having recently joined the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, I look forward to further deliberation on reform of our second chamber.

Turning again to the speech made by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire, I was pleased to hear him laud Gordon Brown—that has not always been the case in speeches he has made. Gordon Brown’s leadership of the Commission on the UK’s Future, established by the Labour party in opposition, was a vital contribution to the debate on how we take forward the constitutional arrangements for government in our country. The commission’s report absolutely needs to be an active document in this Parliament, discussed in this Chamber and I hope by the Select Committee that I have just joined, when we look forward to the future of our constitutional arrangements. The report is right to set out the proposal for a council of nations and regions. It shows also the necessity for reform in regard to hereditary peers, and why those wider reforms of the House of Lords will be important in relation to public confidence in our institutions of government.

The report highlighted research showing that 71% of people in the UK back overhauling the House of Lords. That support cuts across all parties, nations and regions: nearly half the British public think that the Lords does not work well. Support for the current composition of the second Chamber was reported by the commission at just 12%. I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) has recorded even lower levels in other research. It just shows why this reform is desperately required if we are to attain confidence in our second Chamber.

Analysis shows that a majority of Members of the House of Lords are based in London and the south-east. If we want to increase confidence in this Parliament, in Westminster, that issue must be addressed, along with further devolution to other parts of the United Kingdom and the nations of the United Kingdom. A second Chamber whose membership is far more reflective of all the nations and regions of the UK can only help generate greater confidence in our legislature in every part of the country.

[Sir John Hayes]

Interestingly, the hon. Gentleman cites the Gordon Brown study, which one of Gordon Brown’s allies told me had just gone too far and therefore was not acceptable to the Labour Front Bench. But on the issue of representation in the Lords from farther away and from less-advantaged people, to achieve the sort of balance that he describes you would have to salary the Lords, would you not? It is very hard to provide for a second home or accommodation in London on £300 a day.

[Richard Baker]

There are many ways to achieve the balanced representation that I have spoken about. The right hon. Gentleman has shown that he is passionate on these issues too. I hope that he would participate in further debates, which will go much more broadly into the issue of reform of the second Chamber. I am sure that we will have opportunities to have such debates and discussion over the next five years.

Regrettably, we must also reflect on why confidence in the second Chamber is so low. Why have people lost faith in the second Chamber? I have to say that it is because of the actions of the previous Government, which so traduced and blighted the reputation of the second House that this reform—and others—is desperately needed. Public confidence is crucial. Too often, despite the best efforts of the Speaker, the Members of this House and of the other House, and the parliamentary authorities, our constituents feel detached and remote from their Parliament as a whole. I want my constituents in Glenrothes and Mid Fife, and all those we represent, to have confidence in this Parliament and our democratic structures as effective and connected to them and their communities. I am sure that we all share that ambition.

Of course there is much further to go, but I very much welcome the fact that we are finally addressing and concluding the issue of hereditary peers as Members of the House of Lords. It is an important step in the journey of much-needed reform of our second Chamber.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The Labour party promised immediate reform of the House of Lords in its manifesto and set out several steps that it would take. However, the Government have introduced just one of those steps—the step that is most politically convenient for them. Is it a coincidence that their proposals would remove 84 hereditaries who do not take the Labour Whip? They seem reluctant to take the other steps. Very few Government Members seem to want the 26 bishops to stay, but perhaps their remaining is convenient because when the bishops turn up, they vote with the Labour party more often than not.

I object to the Bill because I have a genuine fear that there is no second stage. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) is right: it will be this Bill and nothing else for the rest of the Parliament. Labour Members will wait in vain for the second stage. That is what happened when the Blair Government tried to reform the House of Lords. They ensured that the 92 hereditaries remained as a permanent reminder of the need for proper reform. Now the Government are removing the hereditaries, but not making clear any time scale or further proposals.

I therefore tabled amendment 24 and new clause 19. I want to pause commencement of the Bill unless and until the Government introduced legislative proposals for second-stage reform. Amendment 25, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) tabled, goes one better than amendment 24, so I am happy not to press my amendment and to vote instead for his. It provides a guarantee that proper reform will be introduced and an opportunity to reflect on the type of upper House we want.

I believe that we should have a smaller upper House, which should be wholly or largely appointed. It should not act as a rival to this place. Liberal Democrats who desire an elected second Chamber do not understand what they are letting themselves in for. Let us consider the United States, where the two chambers are sometimes commanded by different parties and very little can happen. A country with an executive presidential system can get away with that, but a parliamentary democracy could not function with a Government with a majority in this Chamber permanently blocked by an elected upper House.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) has tabled several amendments that help enact the Labour party’s manifesto commitments: a retirement age, participation rates and other features that would improve the upper House.

I will vote for amendment 25, which I commend to the Cttee.

[Sir John Hayes]

Last time we debated this issue, I talked about legitimacy, continuity and dignity, and nothing I have heard today refutes the arguments I made then. Of course it is true that this House’s authority is drawn from the democratic legitimacy that enables each of us to speak for our constituents. We are chosen by them and answerable to them. However, that is not the only form of legitimacy.

When the Liberal Democrat spokesman offered her views on the subject, I was minded to ask, “Where do you stand on the Head of State?” Our sovereign is chosen by birth, not election. A Head of State is critical—at the apex of our constitution. As I pointed out on Second Reading, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for whom I have great regard, as he knows, was appointed by the monarch, as I was when I became a Minister.

[Phil Brickell]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is edging towards the edge of his seat. I gave his speech four out of 10: two for energy, one for enthusiasm, and one for content.

[Phil Brickell]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a clear distinction between having a monarch, who is a constitutional sovereign and who does not withhold Royal Assent through the legislative process, as opposed to hereditary peers, who are legislating in the other place on a daily basis?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will try to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman because he is a new Member. We all learn something every day here, and when a Member has been here for 27 years, unless we are entirely stupid we learn a great deal, so I have picked up one or two things. The critical frailty in his argument is the difference between authority and influence. Of course it is true that the King grants Royal Assent to the Bills that we pass and so they become Acts, but the very business of him granting Royal Assent reinforces his authority, and the fact that he has a personal audience with the Prime Minister on a weekly basis, which is more than the hon. Gentleman ever will and more than I do, suggests that his influence over our affairs is considerably greater than that of most of the people elected here. It is quite wrong to suggest that the monarch does not exercise political influence and thereby political authority.

I also spoke about continuity. The importance in our constitutional settlement of the continuation of the role of the House of Lords is that it provides a degree of continuity. Members have talked about what is time-honoured and cast that aside as though it does not matter. What is time-honoured counts because it has been honed by generations of people, not merely decided upon by one group of people at one point in time.

I heard another speech which criticised birthright. If I stood here and said it was the birthright of every Briton that habeas corpus prevails, or if I said it was the birthright of every subject of this kingdom that they can speak and think and act freely, everyone would feel that it was entirely right and proper for me to make those pronouncements, yet birthright has been criticised in this Chamber as if it was nothing.

[Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)]

The point is that the birthrights the right hon. Gentleman describes are available to all of us, whereas the birthrights we are talking about are restricted to very few people, some of whom have inherited them from a point that is literally in the history books and is so far back, and the contribution is so archaic now, that it really means nothing. We have to be realistic about this, and that is why we are looking at the hereditary peers first.

[Sir John Hayes]

Some of the things which we inherit by birth are indeed universal—universal in the sense that all Britons enjoy them. They are not of course universal in the sense that those across the world enjoy them; they would love to enjoy many of the freedoms that we had earned over time due to those who came before us. As the hon. Lady said, these things go right back. The evolution of our constitutional settlement is rooted in history and shaped over time—it evolves.

And it is right that the House of Lords evolves too, so I am not against Lords reforms per se. There is a case, for example, for saying that attendance matters in the House of Lords. We do not have an amendment to this effect, but it would be perfectly reasonable to agree that those appointed to the House of Lords as life peers who never attend or attend very rarely give up their right to do so. That would seem to me to be a perfectly reasonable and measured reform of the House of Lords, and it would cut the numbers dramatically, because although we are frequently told the House of Lords has many hundreds of Members, those who regularly vote in Divisions tend to be drawn from the same group on both sides of that Chamber.

There are sensible reforms that could be made to the House of Lords, but this reform delivers neither in terms of legitimacy, for it makes the House of Lords no more democratic, nor in terms of efficacy, because it makes the House of Lords no more effective. One is tempted therefore to assume that it is prejudice dressed with spite that lies behind this proposal, and I find that hard to believe given the high opinion that I have of the two Ministers sitting on the Front Bench.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir John Hayes]

Many of my newer parliamentary opponents—I would never say enemies, of course—wish to intervene. I shall take them in order, with the Member on the right first.

[John Slinger]

The right hon. Gentleman was keen to score my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell). He gave him four out of 10, and I think he was rather unfair.

[John Slinger]

Significantly higher, let us put it that way—eight or nine, I would say. If I may, I suggest that I would give Opposition Members between seven and 10 out of 10 for being patronising.

[Sir John Hayes]

I did not mean to patronise the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell). I was being paternal or avuncular, rather than patronising, in how I dealt with him. It is a known fact, proven by events, that I have tended to encourage new Members to this House, perhaps to a greater degree than many other senior Members, and that includes Members from across the House. One of the things that one learns here—I spoke about the learning curve we all face—is that the relationships that pervade across this House are as important as the relationships we form on our own Benches.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have been here a little while—seven years—and the right hon. Member has never encouraged me, although he has scolded me once or twice. He has talked about democracy and democratic reforms on several occasions in his speech. Democracy emanates from Athens and the Greek republic. That is the origin of demos, and what does that mean? It means the common people. We are talking exactly about giving common people the right to sit, not the uncommon people of the hereditary peerage. That is the point we are talking about. Demos means universal rights for everyone, not the select few.

[Sir John Hayes]

Ms Nokes, you will not allow me to go into immense detail about Athenian democracy, although I did study ancient philosophy. The hon. Gentleman will know that Athenian democracy was very far from the democratic principles that we hold dear. Only citizens had the vote in Athens, and the assembly there was a very partial affair, and certainly it would satisfy neither you, Ms Nokes, nor other Members.

I will return to the subject in hand for a few moments before I give way to the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies). Having made the case that the Bill does not afford greater legitimacy or efficacy, I want to speak about the authority of this place, the authority of the constitution, and the authority of Government. The authority of this place, as the hon. Member for Bolton West and others have argued, essentially derives from the fact that we are elected, but not just from that. It also derives in part from the balance in the relationship between this House and the other place.

Bicameral systems that pitch democratic chambers one against another are often less successful than the model that has evolved in this country. Although the upper House sometimes chastises this House—it certainly scrutinises us—and although it might clash occasionally with this House in its role as a reforming Chamber, in the end it defers to the elected House. A bicameral system borne of two Houses of Parliament, one of which is elected and one which is not, seems to me to be more desirable for that very reason: we do not have competing democratic legitimacies between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. That is why I disagree with the amendments in the name of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends and with the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart).

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is being generous with taking interventions. I will boil it right down: this Government were elected on a mandate to remove the hereditary peers from the House of Lords, not to set up a wholly elected House and the concerns he is talking about right now. Does he support the Government’s mandate and legitimacy to remove those hereditary peers?

[Sir John Hayes]

The Government’s mandate was for a more widespread reform of the House of Lords. I will not go into it again, but the manifesto of the victorious party at the general election, which now forms the Government, suggested a whole range of measures to reform the House of Lords. I do not really approve of any of those measures.

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[Patricia Ferguson]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way one more time to the hon. Lady and give her a second bite of the cherry.

[Patricia Ferguson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for taking the intervention. I struggle to understand what the Conservative party’s line is on the Bill. It would appear that he disagrees with a number of his colleagues. At the end of the day, how will Conservative Members vote?

[Sir John Hayes]

That is a matter for those on the Front Bench. I see members of the Conservative Whips Office in their place and I see my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) sitting behind the Dispatch Box. These days, I am merely a highly regarded, distinguished and senior Back Bencher. [Laughter.] The days when I had any say in how the Conservative Opposition—or in previous times the Conservative Government—chose to vote in Divisions are gone, but they are not gone forever; this is only a sojourn on the Back Benches. I want to make that perfectly clear.

Let me return to my principal theme, which is that of authority. The authority of this House is partly born of its relationship with the other House. Were the other House to become elected, its authority would by definition grow and our authority by comparison diminish, so I am strongly opposed to an elected second Chamber. While I accept the principled argument of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire and others, it is not for me. There is also the matter of the authority of our constitution. Our constitutional settlement, which we have rehearsed briefly in the debate, is dependent on that relationship, but also—I think it is fair to say—on reforms of this kind being measured.

It might surprise Members to hear that last night, I was looking at a short book written by Hilaire Belloc and Chesterton. That book, which is available from the Library of the House, rehearsed the arguments that prevailed at the time of the debate on the Parliament Act—it was then the Parliament Bill—in the House of Commons. It might surprise right hon. and hon. Members to learn, as I learned last night, that when Asquith introduced those changes—when the House of Lords rejected Lloyd George’s Budget and it became necessary to curb the powers of that House—rather than rushing to legislate, he set up a conference between both sides of the House to determine a compromise. Belloc, as Members will remember, was elected as a Liberal MP. He parodied that process and said that what came out of it was no better than what went into it. None the less, it was an attempt, at least, to reach a settlement in a dignified way on how we might reform the second Chamber. [Interruption.] It did take two elections. It took the 1906 election, as the Paymaster General will know, when the Liberals triumphed. I wonder whether he wants to intervene on me to sharpen up the history.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

That particular constitutional convention did not produce a consensus. It took two general elections in 1910—one in January and one in December.

[Sir John Hayes]

That is precisely right. In the first general election, there was an assumption that the Government would proceed, but the constitutional conference did not produce an outcome that brought about a reform that both sides could agree on. A further general election followed, and the right hon. Gentleman rehearses exactly what that short book describes. The point is that even Asquith at that time, who was determined to reform the House of Lords, felt that ideally that reform should be based on some kind of consensus, or at least a conversation about how that reform might happen and what shape it might take. That is important, because the authority of our constitution to some degree depends on its dignity.

Finally, I want to talk about the authority of Government. We have talked about mandates. It was long ago that the term “elective dictatorship” was first used. The nature of the relationship that I described earlier between Government and Opposition and between different sides of the Chamber is important to counter the risk of a Government with a very large majority ignoring counter-arguments and becoming—I hesitate to say corrupted—altered, changed or distorted by the scale of the majority. Frankly, in this Parliament, the Labour party will be able to legislate as it chooses at every turn. As experienced Members of the House know, including those on the Treasury Bench, Governments are better when they need to compromise, reach agreements and consider amendments.

When I was a Minister, many times in Bill Committees in particular, the shadow Minister would table an amendment. I would routinely and systematically have the argument and make sure that the amendment was voted down, but I would often go back to my civil servants and say, “I think that was rather a good argument. Why aren’t we doing it? I think he or she was right. We ought to alter the Bill.” I would engage with the shadow Minister privately and look at ways in which we could improve the legislation through that kind of scrutiny. Good Ministers and good shadow Ministers always worked in that way, as I did with the now Prime Minister when he shadowed me as Security Minister.

Governments need to understand that to alter their position through that kind of exchange and consideration improves the exercise of government and adds to, rather than subtracts from, the Government’s authority. Good Governments behave in a way that, rather than taking advantage of their power, mitigates it by the choices that they make.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the need to govern responsibly and reasonably, whatever one’s majority. While I was sitting here, I was interested in his record of following through on that strong belief, so I googled his name and “Prorogation”, and I did not see any results. Will the right hon. Gentleman perhaps reflect on any points when he thinks recent Governments might have abused their power?

[Sir John Hayes]

When I was a shadow Minister for many years, I found that some of the Labour Ministers I shadowed did the job I just described very well, and some did not. When I became a Minister, I saw that some Conservative Ministers engaged in the kind of process I have described, and some did not. There has always been variability in the way that power has been exercised across political parties. I invite the hon. Gentleman to speak to any of the people who shadowed me when I was a Minister to see if they would validate how I described the way I acted in those days. The authority of Parliament, the authority of our constitution and the authority of Government are all at stake as we consider these matters.

I return to where I started in terms of efficacy. The last time we considered these matters, Members will remember that I quoted Proust. It was a bit too rich a diet for the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire. He is not a Proustian. I think it stretched the canon of his reading matter beyond breaking point. Today, I am going to test him a little more and refer to G. K. Chesterton, who I think might be more within his scope. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, he is acknowledging that. Chesterton said:

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

It is certainly true that, based on their mandate, the Government have the right to bring this legislation, but I am not sure that they are right in doing it, measured against my tests of dignity, legitimacy, continuity and authority. For as Chesterton also said, before you take a fence down, you consider why it was put up in the first place. The balance that exists at the moment, both within the House of Lords, and between the House of Lords and this House, is precious. It works. It ain’t broke and we don’t need to fix it.

Before I finish, let me say this to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar. We must vote against the Bill on Third Reading, because whether we are in favour of more reform—as some of my colleagues are—or no reform, the Bill does not meet the standards we would expect of good legislation. It is therefore vital that the official Opposition make their position crystal clear by opposing this undesirable and unnecessary legislation.

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

For the record, when we talk about more reform, it is with a lower case “r”.

For many people, the other place in its current format embodies what Britain really should not be: it is undemocratic, it is unelected and—to touch on this only very lightly—it has had its fair share of controversial appointments. There is a suggestion of nepotism here and a dash of financial scandal there, not to mention a sprinkling of oligarchy. Therefore, it represents what a classist society of haves and have-nots can produce. As we know, some Members are there on a hereditary basis, and some are there on the whim and wishes of political leaders who, of course, have their own political motives for having them in position. It is also clear that the different regions that make up the United Kingdom do not have fair representation. The other place does not just have a geographical imbalance, but a gender one—none of which I care for.

I believe that there should be an upper Chamber. In Scotland, we have seen some ill-thought-out political policy that has been financially costly. An upper Chamber would likely have prevented that with the benefit of added scrutiny.

Like British society, the other place needs transformational change. What the Government propose is only a step in the right direction to what I, as a Labour party member, will continue to campaign for from within the party, which is ultimately to change the other place into an elected Chamber where class and privilege are not the entry requirements, but where talent and ability are what get you there.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is a very good point. I remember that rebellion very well—it was the start of my many rebellions. I suggest to Labour Members that they should not rebel if they want get on in this place. We had a rebellion and finally won on that issue, and my right hon. Friend makes a very good point about how we won the argument. That underlines how important it is to have a second Chamber that is not composed of elected politicians. I really do not see the point of electing politicians to a second Chamber, because it would just be like this place: full of people who want to become Ministers and who are completely subordinate to the Whips.

What is the point of having an elected second Chamber? The whole point of a second Chamber is that it should be independent-minded, and the Lords are independent-minded. They regularly defeat the Government, and they actually have better debates than we do. The House of Lords is full of people who have tremendous experience in the professions, business and charities. I just do not see the point of getting rid of them lock, stock and barrel, but there is a perfectly good consensual argument that the number should be reduced. There are some people in the Lords whom we should remove either because they have not been appointed in an entirely right way or because they do not turn up.

[Sir John Hayes]

Further to the point made by my right hon. Friend, Bagehot spoke about this issue. He said that the distinguishing feature of the House of Lords is that its Members’ views are emphatically their own views. In his terms, they are not subject to social bribe, by which he meant that they are not answerable to constituents in the way we are, so they can make judgments entirely free of that pressure. That is a virtue of the current arrangements and, frankly, a virtue of the hereditary peerage too.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I think we can all agree that the other place, for all that it is seemingly undemocratic, works quite well. The Lords actually listen to debates, and they vote according to their conscience. They regularly defeat the Government, and they improve Bills again and again. If it works, why change it?

Will the Paymaster General please think about the idea that I have suggested? We could get some sort of compromise by which all parties in the House of Lords are reduced by the same amount. We could reduce the Lords to around 600 Members, give more power to the House of Lords Appointments Commission and, in future, keep the number at about 600.

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[Sir Julian Lewis]

I am not aware that anything I have said this afternoon has been in favour of retaining the hereditaries. It has not. If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my earlier interventions, he would have known that is the case. That is why I said I am going somewhat wider than this Bill, which focuses solely on the hereditaries.

The suggestion that the upper House stands in low repute is ill-conceived, and I urge the hon. Gentleman and other new Members to take advantage of the seminars that Labour and Liberal Democrat Members and I try to organise to enable new Members from all parties to be brought into contact with leading Members of the upper House, to see what they do. That would be a good use of his and other Members’ time.

[Sir John Hayes]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point about the subtlety of the relationship between the two Houses. I spoke earlier about the relationship between the Government and the Opposition. In an unwritten constitution, political culture prevails, and that political culture is informed by that subtlety and by those relationships. My right hon. Friend described an occasion when legislation emanated from an origin in the other place, but very often legislation is improved and perfected through that connection. That should not be lost as we rush headlong into a piecemeal reform of the House of Lords.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

The elements that make up the House of Lords consist of different groups of people: some have got there by accident of birth and are now going to leave; some have got there as the result of political horse-trading of some sort, and perhaps should not have been put there in the first place; but a great many have got there, as I said earlier, by having reached the heights of their various professions and having proved themselves to be outstanding intellectuals who can bring a level of specialisation to the scrutiny of legislation. Even if we in this House were on exactly their same level of accumulated knowledge, we cannot bring that same level of scrutiny because of the demands we face on our time and in looking after our constituents, which inevitably works to the cost of the amount of attention we could give purely to focusing on improving legislation.

I wish to place on record that the reason why I became an ardent advocate of an unelected second Chamber—and why I would rather have no second Chamber at all than two elected Chambers—is precisely that it is impossible to whip such a Chamber to prevent people with good ideas from persuading peers of the virtue of those ideas. Members of an unelected second Chamber are able to have at least a sporting chance of amending legislation in good ways that would not get beyond first base in this House, because the elected Members, for the most part, almost all the time, obey the whipping.

Before I was an MP, when I was a political activist, I and my colleagues managed to get four pieces of legislation into law. Since I have been an MP, I have got only one, on the privacy of Members’ home addresses, on to the statute book, because, exceptionally, that was a free vote. How many free votes happen in this House? Hardly any. The equivalent of free votes in the upper House happen all the time.

We required postal ballots for trade union elections, which was incorporated into the Trade Union Act 1984 and the Employment Act 1988. We outlawed political indoctrination in schools, which was incorporated into the Education Act 1986 and carried forward in the Education Act 1996. We prohibited local councils from publishing material that

“promotes or opposes a point of view on a question of political controversy which is identifiable as the view of one political party and not of another”,

which was incorporated into section 27 of the Local Government Act 1988. Finally, we more strictly defined the concept of “due impartiality” in the coverage of politically contentious issues on television and radio, which was incorporated into the Broadcasting Act 1990.

Every one of those measures was got through the House of Lords first, and then either adopted in the House of Commons directly or brought forward by the Government in their alternative proposals. We do away with the expertise of the House of Lords at our peril. All we will be left with are machine politicians, whether they are in one elected House or two elected Houses, and that is to the detriment of our democracy, not to its enhancement.

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I welcome the amendments that examine alternative models to the House of Lords. It is not difficult to imagine how we can improve on it: there should be no place for big party donors in any second Chamber; it should have a fixed membership; the public should decide who has the right to populate it and be able to hold the members accountable; and it should genuinely reflect the length and breadth of our country, unlike the current House of Lords, which is dominated by peers from the south and south-east.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be making a case for an elected second Chamber. Does he imagine that that Chamber would be elected at the same time as this one, in which case it would be a duplicate because the electorate are very unlikely to vote in different ways on the same day, or is he suggesting that it would be elected at a different time, in which case the Chamber that was elected most recently would surely claim greater legitimacy and therefore greater authority?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The right hon. Member makes a very important point. I, as a new Member of Parliament, am not educated or informed enough to answer it immediately, and I would defer to the House to define how that process would work.