House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it is my great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Mattinson. We expected an excellent maiden speech from her this morning and we were not disappointed, because the content, as well as the delivery, lived up to expectations. I congratulate my noble friend. As it happens, her speech was entirely in line with much of what was said by my friend from university days, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in relation to reputation.

I owe my noble friend Lady Mattinson a debt of gratitude. As she described, her entry into the wider political arena was in 1987. She said that did not engage in the dark arts, but I seem to remember she was working with someone who did, who is now our ambassador in Washington. I owe her one, because I entered the House of Commons in 1987 with the largest majority that I ever got—of over 24,000—and I never matched it again, so I thank my noble friend very much indeed for that.

My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the reputation of politics and the way in which people see us—both in Parliament and outside—and the critical nature of the threat to democracy and the way in which we conduct ourselves. That is true in terms of young people. I did a citizenship class earlier this week with a school and discovered that none of the 28 young people read a newspaper. Only six of them ever regularly watched the evening news, but over half of them had, either deliberately or by algorithm, been affected by Andrew Tate. We have a major problem and we here in Parliament have to set an example.

I know—because I have supported my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on previous occasions—that the tortoise, and not the hare, is the way in which we conduct ourselves. When the tortoise gets shot, rather than the hare, we are in difficulty. I say to Members opposite that had the Grocott proposals been supported by the whole House, and they were by the majority, the historic Disraeli way of doing things from the Conservative Benches might have achieved a different outcome from the Bill we are dealing with in Committee at the moment.

On the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, transparency, clarity and support for the reputation of having people nominated to this House in a way that is understandable and justifiable are really important, as is the intent of the Bill to reduce numbers to no greater than in the House of Commons.

If my noble friend the Chief Whip will forgive me—I do not think he will—I want to finish by saying that I think there is a cunning plan. The cunning plan is that we are kept here until the early hours of the morning until the numbers drop by dint of the Grim Reaper. It is time that, even within our self-regulation, we got a grip, because there is not a trade union leader in Britain who would put up with the way we do things in terms of timetabling. It is time now to take on board both the first speeches here this morning and get the reputation of politics back on track.