Retirement and Participation Committee Report

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell (Con)]

My Lords, many speakers in this debate, including the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, made the arguments against an arbitrary age limit, so I will not repeat them other than to say that I agree with them. As I look, in particular, at some of the long-serving Peers who sit on the Privy Council Benches, it seems to me that Parliament will be weaker and much less effective if we lose their experience and institutional memory.

I will spend some time talking about the attendance requirement. Your view on that depends on what kind of House you believe we should be and what kind of membership we should have. I pay tribute to those Peers who are regular attenders here—almost every day—whose main activity is the legislation passing through this House. The House needs those Members, we depend on them to get the business done, and they are true public servants. But I also believe that the House benefits tremendously from those more part-time Peers, whose main career is outside politics and who bring the expertise and that wider, parallel experience into Parliament. The value of contribution to this House is measured not just by the frequency of attendance and speaking but by the quality of the contributions.

Although the primary function of the House is detailed scrutiny of legislation, I think the House also has an important constitutional role as an ultimate backstop against the Government on major issues. Having a wider group of Peers who are not necessarily here every day but will come in, vote, listen and attend on those major issues is another strength of the House. On that basis, although the threshold of 20% that has been suggested might seem reasonable, when you think about it, meaningful attendance of a day a week will be too limiting for those who maintain an active career outside Parliament. I would not want to hold myself up as any kind of role model, and I have now retired from active commercial activity, but I suspect that my experience of the changing scope for participation through my career is representative of many others’.

I joined this House almost 30 years ago and, like many others, had a background of a mixed career in business and in policy development across Whitehall. When I arrived, I was in full-time employment in a corporate role. I made arrangements to attend when I felt I could contribute, but I had the advantage of working and living in London. Had I worked and lived elsewhere in the United Kingdom, I would have found it very difficult, even on a passing 15-minute tick-the-box exercise, to be in the House one day in five every week. I then moved on and I had a period as a non-executive director with a portfolio career. That gave me much more capacity to be involved over a period of years. But then I moved on to another role where I was chairman of a major UK bank for over seven years, and during that period that activity naturally took primacy.

That kind of experience over a period of years is typical of many Members of this House who have maintained an active role in a profession or career outside, whether in law, medicine, teaching or any other activity, which does not necessarily enable them to spend one day every week on average participating in the House, but nevertheless, when they do come, they have experience and expertise to bring. The House benefits from that experience and wider engagement. I understand that there is a demand for some kind of participation requirement, but I urge the House and the Minister to consider whether a lower threshold would be more acceptable in terms of keeping those Members of the House who can contribute in that way—for example, 10%, or once a fortnight, would be much more reasonable but still imply people were actively involved. I urge the House and the Minister to think again about that threshold required to ensure that we do not exclude people who can make a major contribution.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

I must point out to your Lordships that the new clause proposed by Amendment 21 would be in substitution for the new clause “Rights of life peers to sit in the House of Lords” agreed by the House earlier today in Amendment 17.

[Lord Blackwell (Con)]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment, and I should perhaps declare an interest as one of the many Members of the House who has had the privilege to be in the House for over 20 years, but that is not the reason for opposing the amendment. The reason is that I do not accept the argument that contributions to the House decline the longer you have been here. In fact, in many cases the opposite is true. In the period I have been in the House, some of the most distinguished contributions have come from former Ministers, former civil servants, former judges and former distinguished people in many careers who, over time, bring their experience; and that experience and the memory of past legislation and previous government experience are an extremely valuable part of our legislative process. The premise of this is mistaken. Of course, people may wish to retire at a certain age, but for those who have the faculty and the desire to continue, longevity and age should not be a barrier.