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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, just a year ago I introduced a Bill with exactly the same objective as the one I am proposing today. Regrettably, despite very strong support from all parts of the House, the Bill was blocked in Committee by a small number of Peers. My motive in reintroducing the Bill is unchanged: the by-election system, which provides for the continuation—effectively in perpetuity—of a block of 90 hereditary Peers is absurd and indefensible. In the 12 months since the last Bill, there have been significant developments that make the case for scrapping the by-elections even more compelling.

Let us remind ourselves briefly how the system works. There are 90 elected places. If a vacancy occurs among the 15 hereditary Peers who were originally officeholders—that is, Deputy Speakers—the electorate consist of all 803 Members of the House. The remaining 75 hereditaries are distributed among three party groups and the Cross-Benchers. The electorate for each by-election then consist of the hereditary Peers who are members of the group where the vacancy has arisen. As a reminder, the numbers are as follows: for a Conservative vacancy, 48 hereditary Peers can vote; for a Cross-Bencher, it is 30; for a Lib Dem, three; and for Labour, three.

Try explaining that nonsense to members of the public as a mechanism for recruiting people to serve in Parliament; I guarantee their jaws will hit the floor. It makes the d’Hondt system look simple, and given that the system is so manifestly absurd, is it any wonder that it results in the most absurd by-elections? I cannot resist repeating the example I gave last year of a Lib Dem by-election following the death of Eric Lubbock—the first person, I might add, who raised the issue of trying to scrap these by-elections. It was held in April 2016, when the number of candidates was 11 and the electorate was three. By way of comparison, before the Great Reform Act 1832, even Old Sarum had an electorate of seven. In comparison with the Lib Dem by-election, that is a metropolis.

I can hear Members asking: “But your Bill failed last year, so why waste parliamentary time again?”.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Grocott]

Well, I will give the answer—and I hope that Members will give their answers during their speeches as well. Even in the 12 months since the last Bill, there have been a number of developments, all of which make the case for ending the by-elections stronger, and the case for retaining them inexorably weaker—so much so that any neutral observer would surely conclude that it is not so much a matter of whether the by-elections will cease, but when.

The debates on the Bill last year, and the discussions that surrounded them, have shown beyond doubt that there is overwhelming support in this House for the reform that I am proposing. Support has come from Labour, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Cross-Benchers—including a very large number of hereditaries themselves, who have come to me and, understandably, find it difficult to speak on this subject. I would love to know what the actual numbers were among the hereditaries of those in favour and those against the change. When the opinion of the House was tested in Committee—of course, on a Friday, when Divisions are rare—the first vote on the principle of the Bill resulted in a defeat for its opponents by a majority of 93. There can be no reasonable doubt that the number of Members of this House who are resolutely opposed to this Bill is minuscule.

The weakness of the Bill’s opponents could not be better illustrated than by the tactics they employed in Committee. In the three months last year between Second Reading and Committee stage, just six amendments were tabled. Then, lo and behold, on the day before the debate, inspiration and creativity overwhelmed two Members of this House: the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, tabled 50 amendments overnight. My Lords, we all know what that is about: a tiny number of Members knowing they were in a hopeless minority in the House and knowing that they could not win by votes so they had better win by tricks. Fifty overnight amendments—if you are going to wreck a Bill, do it a bit more subtly.

This time, my appeal to anyone who is thinking of trying these tactics is to please think again. They do neither noble Lords’ nor the House’s reputation any good. They should win by the arguments and in the Division Lobbies, not by tricks. It is the opinion of the House that should prevail, not the opinion of one or two of its Members.

I also say to anyone who is thinking of wrecking the Bill this time to please think of the adverse publicity for our House that that will attract. I will give three examples from the media since then:

“Hereditary Peers Set To Ambush Bill Aimed At Scrapping Their ‘Laughable' By-Elections”.


Another headline is:

“‘An embarrassment to our politics!’ Fury as Lords prepare to elect new hereditary peer”.


Finally, we have:

“Tory aristocrat joins Parliament for life by winning 143 votes in a ‘Blackadder’ by-election”.


I am the last person on the planet to argue that we should change a good policy because of some bad newspaper headlines, but it is noticeable that there is absolutely nobody, apart from a handful of people in this House, who is prepared to defend these by-elections. The argument for their continuation is friendless, and surely that is because simply there are no such good arguments.

I challenge anyone today who is thinking of opposing my Bill to not give us a history lesson. Instead, come clean and explain to us, in 2017, what added value the by-elections provide to our parliamentary system. Tell us precisely why we continue to replace the 90 hereditary Peers. Tell us what the distinctive characteristics of the 198 people on the Register of Hereditary Peers are that mean that we need to provide them with a reserved place in our legislature? Once elected, what is special about their parliamentary talents that distinguishes them from other Members of the House? To make it personal, what is the justification for the heir of a hereditary Peer in this House having a one in 200 chance of becoming a member of the legislature while for everyone else in the country, that chance is something like one in 90,000? Tell us, here and now, 18 years after the House of Lords Act 1999, what it is about these by-elections that enhances and enriches our parliamentary democracy. If they cannot answer these questions, surely it is time to call it a day and stop playing King Canute.

There have been significant developments in the last 12 months that have strengthened the case for my Bill. Among them has been the evidence provided by yet more by-elections. For those of us in favour of scrapping them, the by-elections are the gift that keeps on giving. There have been two such elections this year. The first, on 21 March, was for a hereditary Peer to be elected by the whole House. The second, on 18 July, was for a Cross-Bench Peer, when only hereditary Cross-Benchers could vote. It is the first of these two by-elections that provides the richest vein for satire. This, remember, was an election for a place in our Parliament—or rather, a parliamentary by-election. The figure for the electorate was 803 and the number of votes cast was 436, meaning that the turnout was 43%. By way of comparison, it is worth noting that in the general election in June, the lowest turnout in all 650 constituencies was Glasgow North East, with 53%. The propensity to vote in a House of Lords by-election, where voters need only walk down the corridor from their offices and put a ballot paper in a box in the Committee room, is 10% lower than the parliamentary constituency with the lowest turnout. That, to me, provides pretty clear evidence that the majority of Members of this House feel no great attachment to the practice of re-electing hereditary Peers.

Then there was the little matter of the ballot itself. No fewer than 27 candidates put themselves forward, 19 of whom got fewer than 10 votes. Under the alternative vote system there were 25—yes, 25—rounds of balloting before the winner was declared. What is more, the same person led in all 25 ballots, so if the voting system had been first past the post, the same result would have been achieved with a lot less trouble. I just thought I would point that out. There was a 43% turnout, 27 candidates, 25 ballots, and only hereditaries could stand. In 1999 when the original Act was passed, surely no one could have intended that 18 years later we would still have that system of recruiting people to our Parliament, and with no prospect of an end in sight.

The other matter is the very important Motion that this House passed last year, moving that,

“this House believes that its size should be reduced, and methods should be explored by which this could be achieved.”

As a result of that debate, the Lord Speaker established a committee under the noble Lord, Lord Burns, to consider the issue. The committee is due to report in October. What has that to do, you may well ask, with my Bill to end the by-elections? The answer is that if we are to reduce the size of the Lords to around 600 Members so that it is smaller than the Commons, surely we will have to amend the legislation that preserves in aspic 90 places for hereditary Peers. If we reduce the size of this House without changing the law on the hereditary bloc, the proportion of hereditaries would rise from 11% to 15%. For us to embark on an important modernising measure to reduce our size with the result of significantly increasing the proportion of hereditaries really would be a case of Alice in Wonderland.

I should point out that we are not the only ones looking for ways to reduce our size and of the way in which that might involve the hereditaries. Since I introduced my Bill last year, the size of the Lords and the issue of the hereditary Peers have been discussed several times in the Commons, in a Select Committee inquiry, a Private Members’ Bill, a Westminster Hall debate and a 10-minute rule Bill. Most recently, on Wednesday this week, the Commons gave the First Reading to a Bill introduced by my right honourable friend David Hanson, which is scheduled for Second Reading in April. The Bill would end the right of all hereditaries to sit in the Lords with effect from 31 December 2019. Surely the initiative for sensible reforms of this House should come from this House. With the help of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, we have had a number of very good reforms in recent years and I believe that with the Lord Speaker’s committee due to report next month, there will be more to come. We should reform ourselves, not wait for someone else to do it for us.

I submit that the case for ending the by-elections has strengthened inexorably since I introduced my Bill 12 months ago. We now have the opportunity in this House to initiate a simple sensible reform that would hurt no one and cost nothing. My Bill was first in the ballot and we are at the start of a two-year parliamentary Session, so parliamentary time should be no obstacle to the passage of a simple two-clause Bill. The case is overwhelming, the time is right, so let us do it. I beg to move.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, as a hereditary Peer I have a brief say at the beginning of this debate. We have a long day of three debates and a large number of speakers ahead of us. I remind the House that there is an advisory speaking time of five minutes for this debate and I urge speakers to adhere to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I regret the introduction of the Bill, but not as much as I regret the fact that we have not had a further Bill, after the 1999 Bill, to reform this House. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and I are on the same sheet of paper when we think what the future of the House should be. We hope that something will happen fairly soon, and it will considerably improve the House.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Caithness]

No, I listened to the noble Lord for 12 minutes and I only have five.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, intervened on the Farriers (Registration) Bill on 26 April this year, and your Lordships can find what he said in cols. 1392-93. That was a Bill that I had taken forward, and he was basically asking whether I would afford the same courtesy to this Bill of his, which was due to come forward, as the House was affording to mine by not putting down an amendment. As a result of that intervention I got a number of emails from people asking: “Is this really how the House of Lords works? Is it, ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back and we’ll get the legislation through’?”. My response was very firm in saying, “No, that is not the way I operate”, and I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that I will be putting down amendments.

I commend the noble Lord for his consistency in bringing forward this Bill and I hope he will commend me too for my consistency, along with that of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. Whether it be the Steel Bill, the Hayman Bill or the Grocott Bill, we have been utterly consistent in our opposition to this particular proposal. The reason is that the agreement back in 1999 was hugely important. It resulted in a compromise that many people did not like but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, the then Lord Chancellor—whom I am delighted to see in his place again today—said, compromises are not necessarily totally acceptable but they are the practical way forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said in his speech that the agreement was binding for all time. That is absolute rubbish; that was not the compromise at all. The compromise was that it was binding in honour for those who voted for it until such time as there was further reform. I believe that the longer the by-elections take place, the more impetus there will be for a major reform of this House. It might take longer than 20 or even 25 years, but if the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, succeeds, we will turn ourselves into a totally appointed Chamber, very keen to defend that position. I think that that is quite wrong for the British constitution in this day and age.

The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, whom I also call a friend, said that it was principle. I say to her that it was not; it was a commitment binding in honour, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said so twice in two separate paragraphs. That is the reason for my objection to the Bill and I will continue, as I have done in the past, to oppose it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and massively grateful to those who have supported my position.

I do not know whether to take the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Young, as a clear rejection or as a possible consideration at a later date, and I am sure that that degree of ambiguity was fully intended by him in his remarks. However, I just want to emphasise that this Bill is not about reducing the size of the House. That would be a small net benefit of this Bill, but that is certainly not its objective—if it was, it would be a pretty poor tool.

In the 17 or 18 years since the passage of the original Bill, 32 new hereditary Peers have arrived, not by any means all of whom have replaced Conservative Peers. The inference of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord True, was that this Bill would somehow lead to a massacre of Conservative Peers. It would be a very slow process of attrition and I think it would be about another 40 years before the job was done which, having myself been here for a little while now, is about the pace at which this House likes to move.

What has been noticeable about the debate, and I shall read it carefully to make sure that my initial impressions are correct, is that the challenge that I put out during my opening speech, which was to hear some positive arguments for the by-elections in terms of how they enhance the House, has not been answered. Of course good people have come here by means of the by-elections—that is not in dispute any more than is the fact that good Bishops have come, as well as good life Peers. But as for by-elections being a mechanism for putting people into a House of Parliament in the 21st century, no one has offered any positive arguments in favour of retaining the system apart from, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who was clearly nostalgic. I understand his nostalgia for a time when virtually everyone here was hereditary and of course most of them voted Conservative. I can understand why that would appeal to him. He described some wonderful debates to us.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I was not displaying nostalgia; I was reflecting upon the very real fact that the nature of the way the hereditary Peers operated was that, because they were hereditary, they had a degree of independence which was extremely desirable. I was reflecting on that point and it is not a nostalgic one at all. The fact is that the composition of this House today has by its very nature lost to a significant degree its independence from the existing political establishment, to the detriment of both this House and of Parliament.

[Lord Grocott]

I advise the noble Lord to stop digging. This wondrous independence and spirit of quality and intellectual debate invariably resulted in a House that always supported Conservative Governments and caused no end of trouble to Labour Governments. I will leave that one there.

I could not improve on my good friend Lord Snape. He has lost none of it in 50 years; he really can turn it on when he needs to. I was always deeply respectful of him. He reports the fact that I was his Chief Whip, but he was my Whip in the 1970s, when he reportedly put next to my name “WWWW”, which meant, “Works well when watched”.

[Lord Snape]

Will my noble friend accept the perception of my views at that time? He has come along very well since.

[Lord Grocott]

I saw no arguments in favour of the by-elections, apart from the one that I really want to put to rest now, which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, repeats time and again about this compromise reached in 1999 which resulted in the 92 hereditary Peers remaining. The noble Lord, Lord True, referred to the fact that I was involved to some extent in that because I was working in Downing Street at the time. I remind him of what I still feel was breath-taking about what happened then. A Labour Government, elected on the clearest possible manifesto commitment to end the hereditary principle as a basis for being in the second Chamber—a Labour Government with a record post-war majority of more than 150—brought that proposal to this House. It was made clear in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others that the Bill, with a huge majority and manifesto commitment, would not be allowed to pass unless major concessions were made, of which these 92 Peers are the result. That was not normal parliamentary procedure resulting in this binding agreement; it was blackmail. That is the only argument that has been put forward to continue with these by-elections. It is a history lesson that ought to be written according to what actually happened.

The only other argument I have picked up is that, somehow or other, the hereditary Peers here provide a constant incentive towards swift movement towards a fully comprehensive elected House. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is in a better position than me because he was there longer: there were loads of debates in the other place on an elected House, but I never heard anyone say that we need to do this because the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton, or the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, are insisting that it happens. By definition it simply has not worked. Those Members who want a fully elected House, of which I am not one, have not been able for various reasons to deliver it, so this incentive that allegedly is there clearly is not working. We should remember that as well.

The only really helpful, constructive attempt to move forward on this, other than what I think is the only sensible way to proceed, which is my Bill unamended—although I always listen to what the noble Lords, Lord Cope and Lord Cormack, and others, have to say—is that there should be an election of the whole House whenever a vacancy occurs rather than these absurd party by-elections with minuscule electorates. I partly answered it in my opening remarks. Even when that happens, less than half the House participates. I always regarded it as a waste of time and I am clearly not the only one. That does not enhance the quality of the democracy, and—this is an even more substantial point made brilliantly by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge—it does not alter the fundamental flaw that, on the register of hereditary Peers as it stands, there are 198 names, 197 of whom are men. Changing the Standing Orders and having an electorate comprising the whole House would not alter that fundamental problem any more than it would alter the fundamental problem of why on earth the only people entitled to stand should be the heirs of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, or the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, although we hope their heirs do not materialise for a long period yet in their new titles. Why should their heirs have an assisted places scheme to get into the House of Lords?

We all think our arguments are pretty convincing. I think the argument I and many of my noble friends put forward are absolutely overwhelming, so let us get on with it.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.