House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Birt Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I will make three points. First, I entirely agree that the participation of hereditary Peers in the upper Chamber as a birthright is a medieval overhang and should be ended, but there is wide agreement that a number of hereditaries, on all sides of the House, make a substantial contribution to our work and in all justice should be retained as life Peers. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, provided a very compelling analysis a moment ago. I hope the Leader of the House will undertake in her closing remarks to initiate discussions with other party leaders and the convenor to identify a common approach to achieving this goal—perhaps on a one-in, one-out basis, with Members who, for whatever reason, make little contribution to this House, retiring and making way for ex-hereditaries who manifestly do.

Secondly, this Bill should be amended to remove another feudal overhang: namely, the right of Church of England Bishops to have a guaranteed place in this House. In the last census, 56 million people answered the question about their religion; 40% said that they had no religion at all; fewer than half declared themselves to be Christian. In other surveys, of those who do declare as Christian, more are Catholic than Anglican; and more people say that they do not believe in a God than do. We are a country of many faiths and of no faith. Our established Church is not even a church for the whole of the United Kingdom, its very name reminding us that it is established in only one of the four nations of this United Kingdom—again, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said a moment ago. Moreover, recent events have demonstrated powerfully and emphatically that the Church of England is losing moral authority. I ask the Leader in her closing remarks to offer a clear and cogent rationale, which we are yet to hear, as to why the Church of England should retain a privileged position in the upper House of the United Kingdom’s Parliament.

Thirdly and finally, the House, as I am sure we all agree, performs an invaluable constitutional role, above all by bringing intense and expert scrutiny to the passage of legislation. But there are many aspects of this House that require reform, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, picked out some of them, as did the noble Lord, Lord Burns. We are too big and should reduce our number. A system is needed to determine the appropriate size within this House of the main political parties. A minority of Peers barely attend and contribute little. We are insufficiently diverse—by gender, ethnicity, regional origin, sexuality or area of expertise. While most Peers are appointed on merit, some are not, and some have bought their way in to this House through party-political contributions.

I ask the Leader if, in her closing remarks, she will commit not to allow these and other issues to fester—perhaps for another 25 years—and instead, once the Bill has passed, as it will, to produce a Green Paper on holistic Lords reform, setting out and weighing all these options.