House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I start by saying, as I have said in past such debates and others have said today, that I am one of those who greatly admire our existing hereditaries. Man for man—that is the comparison today, now that the Countess of Mar has left us—they bear ample comparison. They contribute at least as much as appointees such as myself. Indeed, understandably, a higher proportion of them than of the appointees contribute more extensively. After all, they have sought to come here for that specific purpose and already have their titles, whereas, by contrast, some appointees—and this should be corrected in other proceedings—are appointed in order simply to honour them, and thereafter some of them contribute, alas, very little.

With all that said, I strongly support the Bill. As has been pointed out, our excellent hereditaries are not threatened by it. The practice of continuing to replace hereditaries through these by-elections is surely fundamentally objectionable. To provide hereditaries alone with what in the past I have called—and I think someone else did before me—an assisted places scheme is simply wrong and absurd. Why should hereditary Peers as a class be favoured candidates for these occasional vacancies? If there are to be elections, then why not innumerable others who are equally able to provide good candidates? We could have engineers, economists or, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, suggests, the eldest sons of railwayman. Much the best of all, the general public could provide the pool of prospective best candidates if there were to be any elections to this House. Often the existing position is criticised on the basis that it is manifestly racist or indeed sexist. Indeed it is, but surely in relative terms these are lesser criticisms; they are subsumed in the wider objection that it is not just women and minority communities who are excluded from the chance of filling these vacancies but literally everyone except the hereditaries.

The only suggested rationale that I have ever heard or understood for keeping this system, and I rather think it was given something of an airing today by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—certainly by him on an earlier occasion —is that it ensures that we are not a wholly elected House, a House ultimately in the control of the Prime Minister, and that the result of this existing hereditary election scheme is that we have some democratic legitimacy and, indeed, some independence from the Prime Minister. I say to that, with the best will in the world: tell it to the birds. Those who want an elected House are hardly going to be satisfied when it is pointed out to them that we are not a wholly appointed House because we have 90 elected hereditaries. They are not going to say, “Well, now you’ve reminded us of that, obviously it’s an entirely sound and sensible system.”

I suggest that the Bill once again provides us with the real chance of attempting self-reform in order to improve our image and reputation in the wider world. Of course, not everyone outside this House is totally obsessed with its constitution but an awful lot are, including an awful lot of opinion-formers, and we are subject to a great deal of criticism when we stay with this system. If we are still thwarted in this aim—now that the current is, on the face of it, moving so obviously in our direction—the people will know who is responsible. Indeed, responsible journalists ought to be loudly proclaiming where the blame will then lie: with the Government, not with us. I suggest that the Bill must not only be given a Second Reading but then proceed with celerity and no inhibition through the rest of its stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I understand the point that the public are not terrifically aware of the composition of the House and so on, but the journalists are and they are ruthless about this House. They ignore us and are rude about us; that is the reality.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

And they influence the wider public.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

They influence the wider public but they also influence MPs and Parliament. It makes it very difficult for this House to be as effective as we should be, bearing in mind the quality of the people in the House of Lords.