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

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, to address the issue that has been put before us and to avoid prevarication, there is a new phase 2: it is Burns. There may be a phase 3—who knows? If a Jeremy Corbyn-led Government were elected, there would a phase 3 which might disturb the Benches opposite slightly more than not having by-elections for hereditary Peers. Burns is a phase 2, and it has consequences. Unless the issue of hereditary Peers and by-elections is addressed in the way that my noble friend Lord Grocott proposes, it is not my party or the broader opposition who will find themselves in difficulty, it will be the Conservative Benches. I would like them to reflect on what would happen if we implemented Burns and this House were decanted in six years’ time, with the two things coming together, and the Conservatives were faced with hanging on to their hereditary Peers while losing their life Peers.

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

My Lords, I am a great admirer of our hereditaries. Man for man, pace my noble friend Lady Mar, they are at least a match for those like me who have been appointed here. They are a match in their commitment, their contributions to the House, their expertise and, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, pointed out at Second Reading, their independence of mind and spirit.

Like many others here, I would welcome wider improvements in our appointments system, with a larger role not least for the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, and his excellent Lords Appointments Commission. In the meantime, I strongly support this Bill, which would go some considerable distance to enhancing the reputation and image of this House.

Therefore, far from supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, I see positive merit in this reform being achieved by way of a Private Member’s Bill rather than by government. It demonstrates our own desire and commitment to achieving reforms for ourselves. Consistently with that goes the report of my noble friend Lord Burns, which again is our own attempt to modernise and reform this House. I cannot resist harking back to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in closing the Second Reading debate. He asked why hereditaries should,

“have an assisted places scheme to get into the House of Lords?”—[Official Report, 8/9/17; col. 2186.]

There has been much criticism throughout these debates of hereditaries being, virtually without exception, male and white. As the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, put it at Second Reading, the existing system is, “gender and racially biased”. Surely altogether more fundamentally objectionable even than those criticisms is the fact that this system favours a very tiny, and—I suppose I had better put this in quotes—“well born” number within a wider population of millions. A number of those millions may have even more to contribute to our House than the hereditaries—the few future hereditaries who, if the Bill passes, will not join us. In short, why should they have assisted places? Should we not modernise and reform?

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall say just a few words at this stage. First, I must declare an interest: I was chairman of a royal commission some years ago that produced a number of proposals for reform of the House of Lords, and I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that it did not include by-elections for Peers. I am sympathetic to what he wants to do; my concern is about the timing. Since that report, we have had a Bill from the Labour Government, from Jack Straw, which failed to get through. We had a Bill from the coalition parties which failed to get through. Some of us felt that there was very little likelihood of any Government bringing forward another Bill to reform the House of Lords.