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

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

We will try again.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Just between us two, when they do not hear, the offer is still there.

The one advantage—the only one, I think—of the Government having a majority of 80 in the other place is that it now has the chance to grasp the nettle, safe in the knowledge that its working majority down there will not be threatened by any pesky Lords.

This modest measure would make change very gradually. We are not seeking to say farewell to any hereditary already here; indeed, we look forward to their contributions for many more years. However, the credibility of their work and of this House is undermined by how membership can still be achieved through by-elections, producing a self-perpetuating selection of new Members chosen by a tiny electorate. Let us get rid of this silly nonsense and waste no more time on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, this is the first time that I have been able to contribute in a debate on the Bill. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, I will give it a very warm welcome. My noble friend Lady Hayter said that she had had the pleasure to speak three or four times on these matters, and she highlighted that there has been serious foot dragging on the Bill, which has just two clauses.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Grocott, not only for reintroducing the Bill but for the regular updates that he gives us on the by-election process. It is a telling point that, throughout the period of the suspension of the by-elections, the world did not collapse and we carried on.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I accept that we were facing a huge crisis but, due to the hard work of our staff and noble Lords, Parliament continued its important work and was not stopped from doing it. Of course, since the suspension, we have had a glut of by-elections, which actually has highlighted the process even more. We can see some of the real anomalies about the process, particularly with some of the by-elections from the opposition parties.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, described the current system as racist and sexist. I quite like his description that it is an assisted places scheme that everyone is excluded from apart from hereditary Peers. That sums it up quite well.

There are debates about what is actually stopping progress. My noble friend Lady Hayter highlighted that, in the past, the Minister was honest enough to admit that much of the resistance to previous attempts was to further the Conservative interest. It is a simple fact that we have seen an in-built political imbalance in this sort of process.

The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, asked whether this works in practice. Of course, every noble Lord who has contributed to today’s debate acknowledges the hard work of every noble Lord, particularly those who are here because of the hereditary principle. People actually contribute. Sometimes our biggest problem is those who have been appointed and do not contribute, and I hope that political pressure will resolve that in the relatively short term. But the credibility of the House and what we do is undermined by how membership can be achieved through a very strange system of by-elections, producing a self-perpetuating selection of new Members chosen by a tiny electorate.

I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that it would be better if, before we had these debates, we could have a discussion, and take it into the country, about what we do rather than how we are here. What we do is an important debate. When I first joined the Labour Party in 1970, the position that I held then, and the party was strong in that view as well, was, “Let’s get rid of the House of Lords: abolish the House of Lords”. I have learned over the years, through many periods of Conservative Governments and other Governments, that there is a need for a second Chamber which does not simply follow, or is driven by, the mandate of the electorate. I have appreciated that scrutiny by this House has resulted in important changes to legislation that would not have happened otherwise. I suspect that, if we were wholly elected in the future and then became a challenge to the mandate of the House of Commons, there would be greater difficulties.

I think that the contribution of the Cross Benches is invaluable to the work of this House and I hope that will continue, but I accept that at some point in the future reform must come, and particularly reform that reflects what we are as a nation: that we are made up of a number of countries and that we have strong regional elements that we need to address. There is a way of having that and it is of course through a constitutional convention. I hope that we will be able to achieve that in the very near future.

As for this debate, I must admit that I find it fascinating that most who argue against change do so on the basis that they want fundamental reform. That appears to be a bit of a contradiction and it ignores the fact that, since the 1999 Act, we have had a lot of changes that have improved this House and we should not forget that.

I was reminded by some of the contributions of that excellent book by Antonia Fraser. I do not know whether many noble Lords have read it, but it is a great book on the debates in this House on the 1832 Reform Bill. It is incredible how the hereditary principle was articulated then as, “It secures the nation. It’s actually the continuity that’s really important. We must never forget that. We can’t allow the elected Commons to undermine that fundamental principle of our constitution.” That was in 1832, and, of course, that was a very modest reform: it did not create universal suffrage; it did not change things. From 1832, a series of Acts extended the franchise. Of course, it is not that long ago that universal suffrage was finally established. People often go back to 1921 and so on, but until we got rid of the university seats in 1945, we did not really have universal suffrage.

The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, referred to another issue that concerns me about this debate. We talk about appointed Peers and “elected hereditary Peers”. I wish we would drop that term, because it is a simple fact that all hereditary Peers were first appointed—they were first appointed by a monarch at some point for some peculiar reason. The difference between an appointed hereditary Peer and appointed life Peer is that the former’s contribution stops when they either leave this House or they die, but, apparently, that can carry on with hereditary Peers, irrespective of the qualities or experience that they may bring. That is what brings this whole process into disrepute. Many hereditary Peers in here would undoubtedly make extremely good life Peers and our work could benefit from that, but the idea that we should continue with this ridiculous hereditary process beggars belief. It is time for change.

I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that some change has undesirable outcomes and that reform needs to be considered in the whole, but this great nation has benefited from incremental change. It has benefited from considered changes over a period of time. We are not a revolutionary country; we do not overturn everything and then hope for the good; we make incremental change, and that is why this modest Bill is so important.

I could not agree more with the noble Lord, Lord Young. What we had in 1999 was a short-term fix—it is long enough ago now—but what it has created is a long-term anomaly. Even if we adopt this modest measure, it will not stop other incremental change. I hope that on the basis of the Burns report and the other discussions that we have had—people talk about the Appointments Commission—we will have the opportunity to make further changes, which is really important.

To repeat the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, this House wants this Bill to pass, and it wants the Commons to have the opportunity to consider it, so I hope that will be the outcome.