Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between John Hayes and Gavin Williamson

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

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[Sir Gavin Williamson]

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House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between John Hayes and Gavin Williamson

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[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]

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[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.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between John Hayes and Gavin Williamson

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

I tried to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. As far as I can work out, he said that elected people are accountable, but they do daft things sometimes. There is not much evidence to suggest that Members of the House of Lords have been less wise than Members of the House of Commons. There have been wise people here and wise people there. There have been good decisions there and good decisions here—and bad ones, too. The hon. Gentleman is right, of course, that we are directly accountable to our electors, and I treasure and honour that. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke said that she revered her connection with not just her voters, but her constituents, and so do I.

I will make some progress because I know that you of all people, Madam Deputy Speaker—note my use of “you” in this context—will not want me to truncate my remarks. Having said that, I know that others, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), are very keen to contribute, and he will not forgive me if I use up all this time. Let us talk a bit about efficacy. The average hereditary peer is younger than the average peer. A higher proportion of hereditary peers are active members of the House of Lords, serving on Committees, on the Front Benches of both parties or as Whips. A much higher proportion of hereditary peers contribute to speeches and amendments than life peers. Purely on the grounds of whether they are doing their job well, there is no real argument for getting rid of this small number of people.

There may be a better argument—notwithstanding my resistance to radicalism—for looking again at those Members of the House of Lords who, once appointed, never go. That is the reform that I think I could vote for.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

The Labour party had that in its manifesto, and said that it would introduce it as part of its reform of the House of Lords. Does my right hon. Friend think that it would be good if it supported such an amendment?

[Sir John Hayes]

I would be interested to see what amendments come forward, given my right hon. Friend’s remarks. There is a strong argument for having an expectation that if someone is appointed to the Lords, they do their job. That is the kind of amendment that even I, with my deep-rooted conservatism, could be persuaded to support. On the basis of the efficacy argument, the Bill does not do the job.

Let us speak of dignity. Bagehot described the House of Lords as one of the “dignified” aspects of our parliamentary democracy. Let us translate that into what we know about it in our age: debate in the House of Lords tends to be measured; its amendments, though sometimes forceful, by and large are withdrawn in the end in deference to the elected House; and the expertise in the House of Lords is undoubted, as peers are drawn from many parts of our communities. That includes the hereditaries. The parody of hereditary peers, which I suppose is rooted in the old days of backwoodsmen, that they are somehow a privileged elite who take no great interest in the affairs of our nation and bring no great skill to the consideration of those affairs, is just that—a prejudiced parody.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

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[Sir John Hayes]

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