Procedure and Privileges

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I would certainly like to add my thanks to my noble friend Lord McFall for the way in which he has introduced this debate and for arranging for it to be at a time when we do not delay the normal proceedings of the House earlier in the day. I also thank my noble friends Lord Clark of Windermere and Lord Foulkes, who said such kind words about my Bill to abolish the hereditary Peers’ by-elections, for their continued support for that objective.

I need to correct the speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in two respects. First, he said that we were suspending the law on these by-elections. We are not suspending the law at all; we are suspending our Standing Orders. He also said that the Procedure Committee’s report made a political recommendation. That is strange when the recommendation about the hereditary Peers’ by-elections made in December was carried by 13 votes from all parties in favour of their continued suspension to four votes against. That is pretty conclusive that there is widespread support for the suspension across the House.

That does not surprise me because it will soon be a year since the Leader of the House moved a Motion—it was the Leader who did it—to suspend the hereditary Peers’ by-elections. She did so for the persuasive and common-sense reason that we were experiencing huge challenges in operating the House and keeping people safe during the coronavirus crisis. The Leader recommended that the suspension should last for almost six months—quite a long suspension—from 23 March to 8 September. Since then, we have had two further suspensions, bringing us to today’s Motion—which I fully support—which further suspends the by-elections until after Easter. It implicitly repeats the same message that we heard from the Leader: that we are not out of the coronavirus woods; that holding by-elections requires hustings, which would clearly be impossible, unwise or both; and that the time and energies of our clerks’ department are far more thoroughly engaged in dealing with rather more pressing issues than the restoration of by-elections for four hereditary Peers.

Let us, therefore, take stock of what has been the effect of a 12-month suspension. Has anyone suffered as a result of it? The answer is no. Has it cost any money? The answer is no: in fact, it has saved several hundred pounds, which the elections cost to run. Has the suspension affected the workings of the House? The answer is no: if anything, it has helped us, because the House authorities have been able to concentrate on more pressing matters. What about the world outside Westminster? Has the press been chasing the story of why there have been no by-elections? The answer, of course, is no. Have the public been demanding, “Bring back the by-elections”? The answer is no. If anyone has had any correspondence on this, electronic or otherwise, please send any copies to me.

The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, gave no evidence whatever to suggest that restarting the by-elections would bring any benefit to the Lords, to the constitution or to the public. I noticed that none of the three Peers who have spoken this evening in favour of the by-elections returning had anything to say on this. The truth is that there have been no downsides whatever to the suspension, and we all know why. These elections are ridiculous; they are absurd; they are supported by no one, either in Parliament or outside, except for a handful of Members of this House. That fact, of course, is the elephant in the room in today’s debate: that without the opposition of a couple of Members—the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness —who have used every procedural trick in the book to block any reform, these by-elections would have been scrapped years ago.

Three times in three Sessions of Parliament I have introduced a Bill to scrap these by-elections. Whenever votes have taken place, the majorities in favour of the Bill have been huge, with support from Members in all parties and in all parts of the House. If only the massive majority in favour had been respected, we would not have been having this debate today: the by-elections would be history. Now we have before us the report from the Procedure Committee. The only criticism that I would make is that the suspension until Easter is too short. I would have suspended the by-elections at least until July. By the way, that would also give the House sufficient time to consider my Bill, which received its Second Reading on 23 March last year.

I emphasise again that a further extension would not require any change in the law. All that it requires is a decision by the Procedure Committee to recommend to the House a further suspension of Standing Order 10(6). This is entirely within our legitimate powers to do. Like the Commons, we are unchallenged masters, and rightly so, of our own Standing Orders. As for today, I simply hope that the House will support the Motion in the name of the Senior Deputy Speaker.