Hereditary Peers: By-elections

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Lord Speaker’s announcement of the retirement of Earl Baldwin of Bewdley on 9 May, what is their policy on by-elections for hereditary Peers.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, we are committed to ensuring that the House continues to fulfil its constitutional role as a revising and scrutinising Chamber effectively, including by working with others in your Lordships’ House to address the question of its size. That policy extends, of course, to any questions on the composition of the House. We should of course also offer the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, the very best for his retirement.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Well, that was an amiable Answer —but in no sense an answer to the Question that I asked, which was about the policy of the Government on hereditary Peers’ by-elections. Will the Minister confirm that the retirement of the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, means that a by-election—we shall call it a parliamentary by-election—will be taking place, the electorate for which will be 31 hereditary Peers, and that the list of those eligible to stand as candidates in the election will consist of 198 hereditary Peers, 197 of whom are men?

The Minister is straightforward with this House and he has a sense of humour, so I hope that he shares the view of the overwhelming majority of this House that these by-elections are now beyond satire. They are ludicrous and indefensible. If he does think that—although he keeps his face very straight as he looks at me—I hope that he will be able to announce that the Government will do something popular and announce that these by-elections will be ended by supporting my Bill, and that this by-election, which we will be forced to go through, will be the very last of its kind.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s Bill had an unopposed Second Reading on 8 September and on 23 March useful progress was made in going through the amendments. The Government are prepared to allocate yet further time for the Committee stage of the Bill—a hospitality not normally extended to a Private Member’s Bill, as the noble Lord, himself a former Chief Whip and custodian of Fridays, will know. The use to which the House puts that extra time is a matter for him and for the House.

So far as the by-election is concerned, it will contain, I suspect, the most sophisticated and discerning electorate, comprising 31 Cross-Bench hereditary Peers.