House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between John Hayes and Pete Wishart

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

[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.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between John Hayes and Pete Wishart

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

No, I am going to finish now.

A vapid fascination with now—imagine that. Of course, those philosophers on the Labour Benches will know that “now” is an illusion, as now becomes then in an instant, does it not? Yet the politics of now have an extraordinary appeal for faint hearts and weak minds. I know there are not too many of those in the Chamber, although rather more than one might ideally wish. That fascination with modernity leaves me only able to finish by quoting Marcel Proust.

[Pete Wishart]

Oh, please not! [Laughter.]

[Sir John Hayes]

I know there are students of Proust littered among the saplings on the Labour Benches. If they are truly to become oaks and leave their acorns in the soil, they need to read Proust more. Proust said that

“the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace.”

It is a prejudice that drives the Bill. It is a prejudice that does the House no credit—or at least, I should say, does the party opposite no credit.