House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, with regret, I cannot support any of the amendments in this group. I say “with regret” because there are aspects of them that I like very much. I like the proposal to extend the scope of HOLAC to consider competence as well as integrity. I am also tempted, like my noble friend the Convenor, by wishing to put HOLAC on a statutory basis. But the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, are powerful. So, I would go as far in agreeing with my noble friend as to say that I would favour HOLAC being put on a more permanent basis if a way could be found for dealing with the objections raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howard.

One thing that runs in common through these amendments is that HOLAC’s power being extended runs up against a fatal flaw—that in one case HOLAC is given a veto on nominations to your Lordships’ House and in another it is given the sole right to make recommendations. Those aspects are constitutionally wrong. The sovereign, the King, creates Members of your Lordships’ House. There must be somebody to advise him. It must be a democratically elected person and that has to be the Prime Minister. It cannot be the role of a body such as HOLAC, however admirable its work and however admirably it is composed, to give that advice. The advice to the sovereign must come from the Prime Minister.

So HOLAC’s advisory role is very important but, although we may not like it, in the end the Prime Minister has to take the responsibility. That means the Prime Minister can, if he wishes, reject the advice of HOLAC. The right channel is that HOLAC advises, the Prime Minister advises the King and the King appoints.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments that would put HOLAC into statute, for the reasons given by the Convenor of the Cross Benches, which I shall not weary your Lordships by repeating. To the noble Lord, Lord Howard, I would say that, if HOLAC’s procedures are fair and if the courts are wise, which I believe they are, they will steer well clear.

Amendment 51, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to which I have put my name, is an amendment that is not for the long term but for the here and now. Although the Cross Benches notoriously still lack a hairdresser, we owe to the People’s Peers scheme a decent share of the expertise that so distinguishes your Lordships’ House. Without it, we would not have the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Watkins and Lady Kidron, or the noble Lords, Lord Krebs, Lord Pannick and Lord Hennessy. None of them, incidentally, are what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, described as “public sector experts”, although we have some of those, too. We would not have had Lord Ramsbotham, whose former desk in this place I proudly occupy and whose detailed knowledge of the prison system no current Back-Bencher in any part of this House can equal.

None of those people—and they are only illustrative examples from a short but distinguished list—was active in politics or would have thought of standing for election. None qualified automatically by virtue of a previous job. None was proposed for membership by a political leader. But each has brought qualities of the very highest order to public life. Whether future political Peers arrive here by appointment or by some process of election, I hope they will continue to be joined by a modest stream of independent experts—ideally for a fixed term, as counselled by the noble Lord, Lord Burns—who owe nothing to party affiliation or prime ministerial patronage.

How modest is the stream? The noble Earl has given some figures. Let me give some more. Between the start of the scheme in 2001 and the 2010 general election, HOLAC’s website records that 55 People’s Peers were appointed—around six a year. But, more recently, the stream has slowed to a trickle. In the past 15 years, only 21 People’s Peers have been appointed, balanced between 11 women and 10 men.

I would be wary of any suggestion that might tend to increase either the numbers in this House or the proportion of peers who sit on the Cross Benches—but we do have a problem. The removal of 34 hereditaries will not only leave a large gap on the Cross Benches; it will leave gaps in the collective expertise of the House. How would we have navigated the cladding issue without the noble Earl, Lord Lytton? How could we provide a substitute for the remarkable energies of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden? Such gaps will not all be filled by the current trickle of People’s Peers.

That is where Amendment 51 comes in. It would operate independently of any special arrangement for which there might be support, in favour of the Convenor of the Cross Benches and perhaps others. It would increase the flow of People’s Peers—at least for five years—but the increase would be modest and well within the bounds of precedent. Four a year is somewhere between the current rate and the rate as it was under the last Labour Government.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, has honourably made it clear that the purpose of his amendment is not to provide a route back to the House for hereditary Members who have been expelled—but, equally, there is no reason why such Members could not apply. I cannot speak for HOLAC, but surely a track record of superlative contribution to the work of the House could only be of assistance to Cross-Bench hereditaries who wish to try their luck again by a route that is open to all.

That leads to my last point. We are right to focus in these debates on the qualities of those who are already here, including the hereditary Peers who contribute so greatly to our work. But let us not neglect the qualities and the potential contributions of those candidates who have already applied to HOLAC or might be encouraged to do so. Though the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as chair of HOLAC, cannot speak on this issue, I suspect she would agree that among those applicants are some of our very brightest and best—their expertise valuable and current. Let us give them a real chance, however small, to join this House.

The People’s Peers scheme has shown that the reputation and effectiveness of this place is capable of being enhanced by those who do not come from noble families, who do not benefit from political patronage and who are not members of a political party. I hope the Minister will agree that a modest but immediate revival of the People’s Peers, to which she could commit without accepting this amendment, could help to replace the Cross-Bench wisdom that will sadly be lost when the hereditary Peers leave us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for a typically interesting debate. As I said at the outset, we were not seeking a fundamental reform of the way that HOLAC operates; we were seeking to do something uncontroversial that I thought nobody could possibly disagree with. I have been in your Lordships’ House for only 27 years, so what do I know?

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that our amendment does not break the link between the Prime Minister and the monarch. The Prime Minister would still make the recommendations. I am sure there are many other areas in which the Prime Minister gives advice to the monarch where that advice is constrained by various outside bodies, so I am not persuaded by the noble Lord’s argument.

In a way, the problem was set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, who said that the Prime Minister does not act alone. The truth is that he did act alone in this case. That is why we have the amendment. There was no constraint on the Prime Minister in making some proposals. HOLAC could not then do anything about it. I am not saying that it was a whim of the Prime Minister, or done without thought, but it was certainly his decision and his alone.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. As I read his amendment, the Prime Minister could not recommend somebody if HOLAC had said that he should not. Would that not give HOLAC a veto and constrain the Prime Minister’s powers?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

Yes, it would constrain the Prime Minister’s powers; that is what I want to do. In my view, the Prime Minister has, on rare occasions in the past, acted in a manner that has allowed people who HOLAC thought improper to become Members of your Lordships’ House. That is what I want to stop.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to add to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, and certainly not to the excellent case made by the noble Lord, Lord Burns—that is why I put my name to his amendment—except to say that we cannot continue as we are. We are over 800 strong and we keep ballooning, and that has to stop. The size of the House is too great. I ask my noble friend the Leader of the House to reassure the House that she will take this seriously and consider the report by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Incidentally, that report—I remember the debate; I took part in it—was supported by every party. The noble Lord’s all-party committee was not pushing against a great wall of opposition; it was supported by everyone, and we ought to do something about it. Will my noble friend consider doing so after the Bill is passed? We want this Bill passed as quickly as possible, but then we must return to this issue because it cannot be left on another shelf for ever.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, the House will not want to be delayed. I just want to make one point in support of my noble friend’s amendment. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that I had the honour of serving on the Wakeham commission and I think we did a pretty good job, but the committee under my noble friend Lord Burns did a better one.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 82 only. I spoke in November in our debate on House of Lords reform and, in December, at the Second Reading of this Bill. I said I felt that there were three unfairnesses in the make-up of our House: the hereditary Peers, the Bishops and—the biggest one—the prerogative powers of the Prime Minister to make unlimited appointments to a legislature in a western liberal democracy. That is a very big power without precedent in any other western liberal democracy.

I am not going to repeat anything that has been said already, but for me Amendment 82 does two things. It patrols the size of the House—that is important, although I know there are people who have other views—and, most importantly, it puts a cap on the prerogative powers of the Prime Minister. I fully admit that our current Government are fully and transparently democratic, but that will not necessarily be the case for ever more. Future Governments may not have that make-up, so I feel this is a safety mechanism as well.

As we go forward from here, I feel strongly—here I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Hain—that the thrust of this amendment is important, and I commend the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Hain, for bringing it forward.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I intervened in Committee to explain why I could not support Amendments 5 and 6. I will repeat my argument briefly now. These two amendments would put the committee, HOLAC, into a position where it overruled the Prime Minister. In one case, the Prime Minister could make appointments to the House of Lords only on the advice of HOLAC:

“No recommendation may be made to His Majesty to confer a life peerage except by the House of Lords Appointments Commission”.


So HOLAC would make the recommendation. In the other case, the Prime Minister could be prevented from conferring a peerage on the recommendation of the appointments commission. Both these cases would mean that the Prime Minister was entirely constrained by this advisory committee.

My argument is that the Prime Minister’s powers should not be constrained by a non-elected committee of people, however distinguished. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred to other committees that constrain the power of the Prime Minister, but they are crucially different because they are simply advisory. In this case, what is being proposed is committees that would enforce their decision on the Prime Minister. In the case of non-elected people, that is wrong. If Parliament were constraining the power of the Prime Minister, either to appoint or not to appoint, that would be acceptable. It is not acceptable that a non-elected committee, however distinguished, should do so.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Like him, I have a similar view that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should not be able to constrain the powers of the Prime Minister. Our system of appointment may not be perfect, but it does at least have some semblance of accountability, in that the person who is responsible ultimately is directly elected.

However, although I would therefore not support any amendment that gave greater powers to HOLAC, that does not mean that we should pay no attention to what a Prime Minister does, or that we should not seek clarification about what he intends. So I was intrigued by the Prime Minister’s Written Ministerial Statement of only last month—19 June—setting out the roles and responsibilities of all parties in making nominations to this House, and especially by what he had to say about his and HOLAC’s roles in relation to the Cross Benches.

In his Statement, the Prime Minister reminds us that HOLAC determines the suitability as well as the propriety of any Cross-Bench Peer it nominates to him for recommendation to the King. As I think other noble Lords have said, but I will add for clarification, I personally would not want HOLAC to have a role in considering the suitability of nominations from any political leader to the political ranks. The Prime Minister also says in his Statement:

“I will continue to recommend directly for appointment a limited number of candidates to sit as Crossbench peers … These nominations will … be vetted for propriety by the House of Lords Appointments Commission”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/25; cols. 26-27WS.]


The Prime Minister is making it clear that, for any peerage that he nominates straight to the Cross Benches, HOLAC’s role is only to look at the propriety of such nominations, which I think is quite interesting.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, can she help me on a procedural point? If Amendment 13 were to be passed, Amendment 13A is clearly sensible. We are going to consider Amendment 13A first. Will it be possible to agree Amendment 13A and then vote against Amendment 13?

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the noble Lord, Lord Burns, having added my name to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, expressed perfectly my views, therefore I will not rehearse them again.

On an earlier amendment I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Gove, who expressed a view which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that you could go on putting people into the House more or less for as long as you like. There has to be a limit at some point; we do not want a House of 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000. Therefore, at some point, there has to be a mechanism that puts some brake on, such that what goes out and what comes in are in balance.

As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, set out so well in introducing his amendment, the problem is that each incoming Government find themselves at a disadvantage, having been in opposition, compared with what has gone before. Therefore, they have to do something to restore that imbalance if they are to come remotely close to getting their business through. I therefore think that tackling the size of the House is one of the most important things we can do.

I would make one small suggestion—it is not a quibble—to the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I might have left out proposed new subsection (1) in his amendment, which is what is happening over this Parliament. That will not come as a surprise, since my previous amendment sought to put it into the next Parliament. As I said in that debate, it would be rather unfair if we were to change the rules at half-time, as it were. I think the current Government deserve to have a reasonable number of Peers, but that simply underlines the necessity of having the guard-rails in place to ensure that, going forward, the House cannot go beyond a certain size and should be reduced, with something like the size of the Commons being broadly appropriate.

I do not know whether the noble Lord will press his amendment. If he did, I would happily support him, but I suspect that, like me, he might take a more pragmatic decision. In that case, I very much hope the Select Committee will be able to do its job, although my doubts previously expressed—that it will not be able to do enough—remain.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly add one argument in support of my noble friend’s amendment. There is widespread criticism of the competence and indeed the commitment of some of those who have been appointed to this House. Many of us think that some of those criticisms have been justified. If there is a limit on the size of the House, the leaders of the political parties will be concerned to ensure that the people whom they recommend for appointment will pull their weight in the House and do stuff for their party. That can be achieved only if there is a constraint on those appointments.

The criticisms of some of the appointments that have been made have been bad for the reputation of the House, as has been the concern about numbers. My noble friend’s amendment would deal with both these aspects, but the aspect of ensuring that party leaders want their appointments to be of good quality is another very important argument in favour of a constraint.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is quite clear that legislation is needed if we are to control people coming into the House. I support very much the line of thinking that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, outlined. There is just one point that troubles me, and perhaps I can dare to mention it. When this Government came in, the Prime Minister made a number of appointments to strengthen the Front Bench of the party, which was obviously going to have to deal with ministerial issues and represent the Government at various stages in both legislation and debates. It struck me that the appointments that were made—I will not mention names—were well chosen and that the Front Bench was strengthened, to the advantage of the House. The reason I say this is that there is great force in the point that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, is making: that we need to discuss this in more detail.

I am very much in support of the principle that lies behind this, and I did my very best to make it work, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, did in his case. It was, of course, ultimately the Prime Minister’s patronage that made it impossible to continue to make it work—that is the real issue we have to deal with. That brings me right back to the flexibility to strengthen the Front Bench. I am not talking about broader appointments, but is it right that the Prime Minister should not be able to appoint somebody from outside who has particular expertise to enable the Front Bench to perform its function to the best of its ability?

I mention this simply as a pointer towards the point that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, made at the beginning: this really does deserve discussion, and it would be very helpful, since all these issues are intertwined, if the Select Committee could discuss it as well.