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

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Balfe

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I shall make only a short contribution. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a duck, and I know a filibuster when I see one. We have this ridiculous amendment to the Motion when, as my noble friend has pointed out, we have had a vote at Second Reading. We have all these other amendments tabled in the names of my noble friend and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. What is going on here is an attempt to frustrate what is the majority view of this House. It is a majority view because we value the hereditaries and the important contribution they make to this place. I personally am opposed to an elected House and I thought the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—that hereditary by-elections meant that the Prime Minister could not appoint people who would be compliant—was an insult to us all. None of us is compliant in this House, as my noble friend the Chief Whip will remember from yesterday. We act appropriately on our judgment, and that is the value of this place.

I saw in the Sunday papers that the Speaker in the other place had spent a bit of money on devising a new logo. When I looked at the new logo, I could not see the difference. Then I realised that it was not just about a few balls on a portcullis; rather, there was a huge difference. It has been proposed that the existing logo of the portcullis and the words “Houses of Parliament” should be replaced by one saying, “UK Parliament”, thus downgrading this House. Again and again, this House produces excellent reports—I declare an interest as chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee—which are largely ignored.

The reputation of this House has fallen considerably because of the numbers, and frankly, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, pointed out in his excellent article in the House magazine and as the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has pointed out, this is about the reputation of this House. If we wish to maintain the hereditary presence—I was privileged enough to join the House while the hereditaries were still here and they make an excellent contribution—we have to get rid of a process that generates ridicule and damages us. It enhances the argument of those who would wish to get rid of the hereditaries and make this House an elected Chamber—one, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has suggested, in which the Prime Minister’s patronage and the patronage of the Chief Whip and others would run well. That is not what this House is about and it is not its function. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw not only his amendment to the Motion but these ridiculous other amendments, which are designed to prevent this House taking a decision and sending it to the other place for it to take a view.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a couple of points as someone who gave both written and oral evidence to the Burns committee. The Burns committee did not deal with this subject. It decided specifically not to do so because it felt that it would be outside its terms of reference. We hear that the resolutions of Burns have not been implemented, but then, parliamentary reform is an ongoing process. From the 1832 Reform Act through to votes at 16, which will inevitably come, we have reformed the way we run the country and how parliamentary systems work. I believe that we are passing up an historic opportunity if we do not back the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.

Many years ago, I remember having a conversation over dinner with the late John Smith, a man I greatly admired. I asked him, “What is the most difficult thing you face?”, expecting him to come up with some problem in the House of Commons. He replied, “The queue of people outside my door who think that they should be in the House of Lords”. It is inevitable that at some point there will be a change of government. At that point, there will be a big difference between the number of Peers on each side of the House. In the city of Cambridge where I live, there is not only seething anger at what is seen as a party that is somewhat out of touch with aspirations of home ownership and the like; there are a lot of people who think. Let me tell noble Lords what I think will happen. If the Labour Party has any sense, which it does occasionally, it will include in its manifesto a line saying, “We will remove the right of hereditary Peers to legislate”. This would then be covered by the Salisbury convention, and the measure could be passed. When there is a change of government, there will be a great demand for radical measures—and this is an easy radical measure. The balance of the House would change very quickly because there are more hereditaries on this side of the Chamber than on that side. That would get the Labour Party out of a difficult corner and reduce the number of people.

I urge my colleagues to think carefully before they reject what I stress is a very modest proposal. I would like to see it passed, to see Burns implemented and to see us demonstrate to the country that we are capable of reforming ourselves. We should not have this charade of pretending that somehow, this or that has not been completed. This is a challenge for the whole House: to show that we are not, as was described to me by students at a recent meeting in Cambridge, the “pensioners’ party”, but that we are actually a part of the living government of this country. We play a vital role in the governance of this nation and the House of Lords has a definite place in the running of this country. We should get on with it, take the reforms on board and settle down to some sensible work. I hope that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will be supported.

Finally, I appeal to the Government because it is the Government who can help. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I believe that, in the 1960s, we had the greatest Home Secretary of the past 100 years—Roy Jenkins. He dealt with a lot of radical measures by the simple means of saying, “I will give government time to these Back Bench initiatives”. I ask the Government to seriously consider taking this Bill under their wing and enabling it to pass, because if they wanted to, they could. If the Bill falls it will be in part because of this House, but also because our Government have not willed it to pass. I hope they will look carefully at making time available for this Bill to go down the Corridor, where I do not detect any great opposition to it.