Elections: Electoral Commission Recommendations

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend raises an interesting question. I think the honest answer is that all countries in the West have to wake up to a new form of conflict where military and non-military weapons are joined together in an integrated and dynamic way in order to achieve political aims. My noble friend is right: Russia is at the forefront of this so-called hybrid warfare, with a wide spectrum of capacity which has the potential to damage political and democratic institutions. That impacts on a wide range of government departments, and we have to make sure they are correctly aligned to see a proper response to this very real threat.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord, Lord Young, agree that it might be helpful for the Electoral Commission to direct its attention to an aspect of our elections in this country, namely the system of by-elections for replacement of hereditary Peers? Can he confirm that there is one taking place next Tuesday in which the statistics are as follows: 31 electors and 19 candidates? To make it even more absurd, the total number of people—that is, hereditary Peers—who can take part constitutes 0.004% of the electorate in Britain. Is there any electoral system anywhere in the world quite as ridiculous as this? Will the noble Lord please do the very simple thing, which is to acknowledge this and to support a Bill to scrap them?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I commend the noble Lord on his persistence and ingenuity in campaigning tirelessly for his Private Member’s Bill. He refers to an anomaly. This was introduced in 1998. If it was so absurd, why, for the next 12 years, when his party was in office—when he, indeed, was Chief Whip—did he allow this anomaly to remain on the statute book?

House of Lords: Size

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I think we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and then from the Conservative Benches.

[Lord Grocott]

I gently suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Young, that he would not be answering 15 questions if he could give us one answer. The answer that I would like him to give us is the one that was presented by the Burns report, which has been largely accepted by the House, and indeed implicitly by the Government; that is, the completely anomalous position of having 92 protected places while trying to reduce the size of the House, so that, following last week’s vacancy caused by the retirement of Earl Baldwin, this House will be by law obliged—against its policy—to replace that exiting Peer with a new Peer. If the Minister will simply answer yes to my question of whether the Government will put an end to that anomaly, I guarantee that he will not get any more questions from me.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

There are, however, many others who might fill the gap. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was the first to admit that his Bill would have but a marginal impact on the size of the House, which is the subject of this debate, dependent as it is on the mortality of the hereditary Peers—none of us would wish to see that accelerated. So far as his Bill is concerned, as I said when he asked a question last week, unusually we have offered additional time to him. There will be another Friday when he can take the Bill forward and I have made it absolutely clear that the Government will not obstruct it. It is up to him and the House to make progress with the additional time that we will make available.

House of Lords: Membership

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I do not have the mental capacity or the bandwidth to work that out. Fifty? Sixty? Any advance on sixty? [Laughter.] I notice some jostling for position on the Liberal Benches. I am sure that by the time the House rises someone will have worked out the exact proportion and how many Liberal Democrats ought to go.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, will find himself on pretty thin ice if he is suggesting that there has been some kind of fairness between the two major parties over the last couple of decades and the last few Prime Ministers. I remind him that when Labour came into office in 1997, with a majority of around 170 in the House of Commons, it had a deficit of around 250 to 300 in comparison with the Tory representation in this House, and it took nine years, until 2006, until Labour even became the biggest party in the Lords. They of course were the only nine years in the Lords’ history when the Labour Party has been the biggest party. It took the Tories just four years after 2010 to reassert their traditional position of being the biggest party in this House irrespective of the results of general elections. So the Minister needs to be a bit more cautious in talking about the peerage-awarding powers of Prime Ministers when Labour has been at such a massively consistent disadvantage.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I take the noble Lord’s point, but the base from which the two parties were starting in 1997 and 2010 were totally different. That is why it took the Labour Party longer to catch up.

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.

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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Grocott]

That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken, all of whom have spoken in favour of the Bill. We are simply debating an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that regrets the fact that the Bill will be considered in Committee. I need to remind the House, and maybe even the noble Lord, what he had to say about the timing of the consideration of my Bill when it had its Second Reading in September. He said that the Bill is “untimely”. The reason he gave was that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was,

“chairing a Speaker’s Committee to examine the size of the House, which will … have a bearing”,—[Official Report, 8/9/17; col. 2155.]

on my Bill. He is now suggesting that we should not consider the Bill because not all the recommendations of the Burns committee have been met yet. I tend to get the feeling that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, would not be in favour of the Bill going into Committee whatever the circumstances of the Burns committee or any other. But he was absolutely right in one respect when he said that the Burns committee would have an effect on this Bill. It does indeed: it makes the case for it even more powerful.

I remind the House that the principal recommendation of the Burns committee, which has overwhelmingly found favour in all parts of this House, is that the House should reduce its size over time to 600 Members. One of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—I have to keep a straight face as I say this—suggests that we should delay any further consideration on the Bill until the House has been reduced to 600 Members. He is saying that the whole of the House can start reducing itself, apart from the 92 hereditary Peers. I hope, in the course of his response, he will explain the logic behind that argument, because it escapes me.

I am a chap of generally sunny disposition, but I am strained at the moment because I fear the tabled amendments do not try to improve the Bill, which is the point of Committee; they are designed to wreck the Bill and/or delay it indefinitely until some time in the future. Nothing has changed in the noble Lord’s approach, or that of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, come to that, since we last discussed the Bill, but lots of other things have changed, including the Burns report. The noble Lords have tabled a large number of amendments—I think they put their name to 57 on a two-clause Bill. There are 13 groups, so they have at least reduced the number of groups that were considered last time. Normally a two-clause Bill should be able to get through Committee in two and a half hours, which is roughly the time we will have to deal with it today. Their position will be tested on whether they agree to see the Bill through its Committee stage in the time left to it.

I feel very strongly that it is important that the House has an opportunity to express its view on the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, to the Bill. He is asking us to delay it. My feeling is that the overwhelming view of Members of this House, on all sides—including, my guess is, a majority of the hereditaries, many of whom have come to me and said that they support the Bill, notably including the noble Countess, Lady Mar, who cannot be here today, who is the only woman among the 92 hereditaries—is that they want us to get on with the Bill. It might be that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is right that he has a lot of support here, but I think it is something he would want to test so that he and I can both judge the strength of feeling there is on this piece of legislation. I hope the noble Lord will stand up now and seek the opinion of the House.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I am grateful for the point of view of all noble Lords who have spoken, not many of whom have agreed with me, I fear. Be that as it may, I am clear that we now ought to proceed to Committee. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 1 and in doing so I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and his praetorian guard for appointing four tellers for the Division. I and a number of my noble friends did not take part in that Division because we would have been very happy to see the amendment withdrawn and not to waste 10 minutes going through a Division Lobby.

Amendment 1, standing in my name, is what is termed an overview clause. It aims to spell out what the consequence of the Bill is. Before I come to the amendment, I want to say very briefly where I stand on the Bill because I have been referred to—I will not use the personal abuse that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, used, but I think it is right that I set out exactly where I stand. I believe in the principle. I am very glad to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, in his place. He said on this matter in this House on 30 March 1999,

“this Bill is about principle”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 206.]


My opposition to the removal of the provision for the succession of hereditary Peers is also a matter of principle.

What was agreed in 1999 was that there would be hereditary Peers and successors pending further reform. I hope that we will get that reform through the Burns report. It is not the reform that I would like—I would prefer a smaller, elected House—but I will be very happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, when the Burns report is fully on its way to being implemented. I am also happy that the number of hereditary Peers should be reduced to the proportion that it is now, because as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, rightly points out, if the House comes down to 600, the proportion of hereditary Peers goes up. If it goes up a few per cent, I would be very happy that the number of hereditary Peers comes down from 92 to 82 when the Burns report comes in, because that would bring us back to the status quo.

My opposition is not to what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is arguing for, but to the principle of doing it now, because it disconnects what we all agreed to in 1999, which was binding on our honour. The noble and learned Lord the former Lord Chancellor, who is here, was very firm and made it perfectly clear that, if we did not agree to the compromise that had been negotiated on Privy Council terms, the Government would renege and use the Parliament Act. He spelled it out very clearly, saying:

“I wish no one to be left in any doubt”.—[Official Report, 30/03/1999; col. 208.]

[Lord Grocott]

The noble Earl said he did not want to waste time and that is why he did not take part in the Division. May I help him by saying that I am happy to accept his amendment? It does not do anything, but it seems to me that it does not do any harm either, so in order that we can move on to the next group of amendments he can rest assured that I accept his amendment. Therefore, I suggest that he concludes his remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, this group of amendments includes a number which would kill the Bill. Amendment 5 would leave out subsection (2) and Amendment 24 would leave out subsection (3), but if we leave out subsections (2) and (3) we would not have much of a Bill left. In truth, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is confirming my suspicion that he is trying not to improve the Bill but to kill it, so I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, this is the only opportunity I have to say that it is not often I would do anything which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, did not approve of. But I voted against the Motion and I want to make the point that it was the only way in which the House could send a message to the Government, and to people outside, that the House is greatly in favour of the Bill going forward.

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[Viscount Trenchard]

The noble Lord is quite correct that the original creations were due to prime ministerial patronage, but successive holders of the title who have sat in your Lordships’ House were not so obliged and did not owe their presence to the Prime Minister. In that sense, they were independent because they owed it to the random accident of birth. The by-election system is very competitive. It is a combination of random accident of birth, a bit of geographical coverage and competition.

The charge that the House as presently constituted gives these Benches an unfair political advantage—

[Lord Grocott]

The noble Viscount is speaking to Amendment 2. Will he remind the House of the wording of Amendment 2 and how his remarks relate to it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, very briefly, I am wholly opposed to this whole group of amendments for the very important reason given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern: these are wrecking amendments. If they were going to be pursued appropriately in your Lordships’ House, they should have been raised at Second Reading as an opportunity to vote against the Bill then. I am particularly opposed to Amendment 59, which has been given so much emphasis in the last few minutes and reads:

“Whereas it is no longer intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular basis”.


That is a subjective supposition. It may be true; I do not know whether it is true. What sort of timescale is envisaged? It is not a fact and, therefore, for us to put it into the Bill would be absurd.

If I may take this opportunity, the first person who I think would have reacted to that particular suggestion would be our former colleague Lord Richard. I served with him in a number of capacities but, in particular, through a whole year on the Joint Committee on the then draft Bill brought forward by the coalition. He would not have accepted that as a statement of fact, because it is not a statement of fact. It is a supposition. I therefore hope we will dispose of this whole group of amendments and, in particular, dispose absolutely clearly and without any doubt of Amendment 59, if only to make sure that Lord Richard’s view on this issue remains with us. He was always clear and consistent and argued his case with such conviction; we should at least respect that in this case.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I intervene very briefly on this group in the hope that I can speed things up, because these amendments are clearly designed to wreck the Bill. The vote should have taken place at Second Reading; the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others decided not to vote against Second Reading. We are now nearly two hours into this debate and we are on the second group of amendments. I conceded the first group entirely to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and said that I would accept his amendment. What is taking place now—I know there have been interventions—is an abuse of this House. To be crystal clear about this, virtually none of the contributions has been about this group of amendments—or very few; there have been one or two exceptions. They have been Second Reading speeches, repeating time after time tired old arguments that are long out of date and have been long refuted.

I very rarely disagree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay; I can think of no other way in which the House could express its opinion as to the overwhelming majority who support this Bill and are concerned about the reputation of the House and this very small part of our constitution. It is part of our constitution that we have elections in which there are 11 candidates and three people entitled to vote—try to defend that. Do not go into the history books and explain precisely why the original 1999 Act was passed in the way that it was. I could wax lyrical on that—I was working in Downing Street at the time. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others, made it pretty plain—by whatever right they must explain for themselves—that the Labour Government, with our majority of 170-odd and with a precise and unarguable commitment in our manifesto to end the hereditary peerage, would be prevented from doing so. It was made perfectly plain to us that many of the 750 hereditary Peers who were here at the time would not just block the Bill—they were intent on doing that—but wreck the Labour Government’s democratically elected manifesto and programme.

It seems to me that the same thing is happening now, but by different means. A tiny minority in this House are trying to block the overwhelming view of the majority. I greatly respect the procedures of this House. They are terrific in the way that they enable people to make contributions, to table amendments and to speak frequently. It is a great privilege to which we are all party. But to deal with, effectively, just one group in the best part of two hours—after an attempt was made to delay Committee stage—is a clear abuse of this House. If the people who persist in opposing the Bill do not do it by the proper mechanism, which is to vote against Third Reading—Report and Third Reading are to come, quite apart from it going to the Commons thereafter—then their proper course of action is to let the Bill proceed and let it be amended in a way that improves it, not that wrecks it. Then, if they are still not happy—which many of them will not be, I know—it is their right to get rid of it at Third Reading. I think we should expedite this, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will quickly withdraw his amendment and others will not move substantial amendments. I can see that they make the House look ridiculous and, in some cases, make themselves look ridiculous.

[Viscount Astor]

Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that, in the previous Parliament, when he was Chief Whip, on the boundary changes Bill, his party kept your Lordships up all night, filibustering with what were, in effect, Second Reading speeches, to frustrate that Bill. He cannot have it both ways.

[Lord Grocott]

May I just remind the House of whether the Bill became law?

[Viscount Astor]

The noble Lord’s party blocked the Bill; that is my point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

I am afraid the noble Lord needs to attend rather more frequently before he makes interventions on what happened when. The Bill was passed. There were long discussions and long debates; I do not object to that. However, what is happening here is a deliberate attempt to do in Committee what should have been done at Second Reading. These are age-old procedures and I respect them enormously: First Reading, Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading. To do what is being done now in Committee is an abuse and it should stop.

[Lord True]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, he has spoken of abuse—we are in Committee, so I may come back—I believe that I tried to make a reasonable speech and I asked the noble Lord a specific question on Amendment 33A. He has not had the courtesy to respond. I am disappointed by that; it was meant as a constructive amendment to enable progress to be made, I do not accept widespread, scatter-gun accusations of abuse against those of us who seek to make a contribution on this matter.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, the noble Lord, of all people, should know that we will debate Amendment 33A when we reach it. If I start responding to amendments we have not even reached, we will go on even longer.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, when I moved Amendment 2 a little while ago, I should have said that I was speaking at the same time to Amendments 5, 24, 31, 35, 52, 53 and 59. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.

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[Lord Grocott]

The noble Earl really must acknowledge what he is doing. It is not a question of amending the by-elections; the clue is in the Title of the Bill, which includes the words, “Abolition of By-Elections”, so all the amendments in this group are clearly trying to reverse or block the fundamental purpose of the Bill. They are all about changing bits and pieces in the mechanism by which the by-elections take place. These by-elections are unimprovable, and the noble Earl ought to acknowledge that this whole group of amendments would wreck the Bill. I hope that he will draw his comments to a conclusion.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, if that is the noble Lord’s sole argument he should not have said what he did at Second Reading and he should not have used those arguments in his recent articles. He argued very firmly that the present basis of election was unfair in some aspects and rather stupid in others. We are seeking to correct that. If the noble Lord is going to absolutely set his mind against that, he should not have said what he did at Second Reading or written what he did; that is the equivalent of claptrap, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the fundamental point.

I support my argument with a few quotes from when this issue was debated in another place. I refer particularly to the comments of the then Sir Patrick Cormack, now my noble friend Lord Cormack, who said:

“I believe without equivocation … that the House of Lords will be better for the 92”.


I understand that he has changed his mind but I think he ought to explain that to the House.

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[The Earl of Erroll]

Thank you for that but in the same way that we have to declare interests, the noble Lord should also have to. I am sure that he has served with great distinction but does that, towards the end of the career, qualify him for going automatically into the House of Lords?

Leaving that aside, I go back to the nub of what I want to talk about, which is the by-elections. I have been reading the 1999 Act. As far as I can make out, the whole thing, including the party proportions, is set in our Standing Orders; it is not in the primary legislation. So, actually, as an interim measure, I would have thought the first thing we should do is amend our Standing Orders to make them more sensible. I know that there will be changes in the party balance but I think that is right. Having done that, we can then deal with the democratic issue of whether or not we slowly become an appointed House. I realise that for some people that will not be acceptable, because it might result in there being less pressure to change to an appointed House more quickly. I personally think that we should look first at our Standing Orders. That is what this series of amendments is about. However, I do not think they need to be in primary legislation to achieve that.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, unfortunately, the contributions that have been made have to be dealt with even though they clearly do not address this group of amendments. Changing the Standing Orders does not alter the fundamental reason why these by-elections must end. A key argument, which has already been made, is that changing the Standing Orders will not alter the gender balance of the people who sit in the Lords currently as hereditary Peers. As my noble friend rightly reminded us, people are watching this debate and, I guess, wondering what on earth is going on, so we need to remind them of the facts. Of the 92 hereditary Peers in the House at the moment, one is a woman and she supports my Bill. It is worth remembering as well that in the 19 years since the original Act was passed, the situation has got worse. There were four women among the original 92, so the whole operation has got worse during the 19 years of this temporary measure. It has no prospect of getting better under the present system, and Standing Orders do not touch this because, of the 198 people who are currently on the register of hereditary Peers, just one, coincidentally, is a woman. None of these amendments addresses that. Do we really say that in 2018 we should continue with a system, even when the size of the House is diminishing overall, in which 92 protected places are virtually exclusively male? I hope that before anyone speaks on any of these amendments to try to improve the unimprovable, which is the current system of by-elections, they will address that problem and why they continue to support an effectively men-only 92 bloc that cannot be reduced, and which will not be reformed unless my Bill goes forward.

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[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I would like to move Amendment 10, and I am emboldened to do so by what my noble friend Lord Shinkwin just said. It is worth reminding the House that at the moment, there are 214 ex-politicians in this House. Add to that—

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I remember distinctly, because it was only 20 minutes or so ago, that when we began discussing this group, the lead amendment of which is Amendment 6, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, devoted most of his speech to Amendment 10, which is in this group. He has been in this House for 40 years or something of that nature, though not as long as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, so he knows we have dealt with this group of amendments. Of course he may want to speak to his point at a later stage of the consideration of the Bill, but he has already addressed the specific point of this amendment within the group that we have now disposed of. I respectfully suggest to him that we should move on to the next group, which begins with Amendment 11.

[The Earl of Caithness]

I do not think the noble Lord is right. Although the amendments are grouped for the convenience of the House, you can still speak to an amendment individually whether or not it has been in a group. I am speaking to Amendment 10. I just wanted to add a few words because I wish to test the opinion of the House on this, as I think it is important. There are at the moment 214 ex-politicians in this House, added to which there are another 101 ex-councillors, and I have excluded councillors who became politicians in later life. That is about 40% of the House. If one removes the hereditaries, the balance of the House shifts yet further. It is for that reason that I think we ought to have an electoral system that is different from the one that we have at the moment, and I beg to move.

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[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Although I personally have every sympathy for the Bill of my noble friend Lord Grocott, and I would like to hear whether he feels that there is a way of getting it through the House, the second Bill raises some very significant ethical issues which it is important to discuss. The conscientious objection Bill is not a trivial measure and it is right and proper that we discuss it in Committee, as arranged by the usual channels.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, although I am no longer a proper member of the usual channels, I can tell the Committee that, in discussions with those channels, it was decided that the fair thing to do was to split today between the two Bills. In answer to the question from my noble friend Lady McIntosh and without betraying any private discussions, I have every reason to believe that further time will be made available for the Committee stage of my Bill, which has the overwhelming support of the House.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

I support that. I had hoped that we would have finished the Committee stage of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, by now, and it is unfortunate that we have not done so. The amount of time that we had for it seemed reasonable. I support what has obviously already been agreed, as I have some interest in the next Bill as well. However, I invite the usual channels to do their best to get more time for this Bill as soon as possible.

House of Lords: Register of Hereditary Peers

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grocott]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the legislative arrangements giving rise to the Register of Hereditary Peers who wish to stand for election to the House of Lords.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the House of Lords Act 1999 provides for Standing Orders of the House to make arrangements for the replacement, by elections, of hereditary Peers who are Members of this House. The Standing Orders provide for the register of hereditary Peers. Therefore, these arrangements are a matter for this House.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

That was not really an Answer to the Question. I just ask the Minister to confirm that, of the 198 names on the register of those who are eligible to stand for by-elections for vacancies among hereditary Peers, just one is a woman and none is from any of the ethnic minorities. Should not those two facts alone convince us all that this system is not just ludicrous but totally indefensible? I have a very simple question for the Minister and, if he could just answer with a yes, we could move on to the next Question. Will the Government do something that will hurt no one and cost nothing—that is, back my Bill, which would scrap this whole ludicrous system?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. Moving on to the next Question would not help me at all, as I have to answer that one as well. As he will know, when I replied to the Second Reading debate on his Bill, I said, referring to the specific anomaly that he referred to, that as a consequence of the current arrangements we have a system that is very difficult to defend in equality terms, and that reflected the views expressed. However, I went on to say that there is an exemption from the Equality Act for this arrangement. The Equality Act 2010 provides that neither a life peerage nor a hereditary peerage, as a dignity or honour conferred by the Crown, is a public or personal office for the purposes of the Act. So Parliament specifically exempted these provisions when it passed that piece of legislation.

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.

Boundary Reviews 2018

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I heartily agree with my noble friend. His constituency was made unwinnable by the Boundary Commission; mine was actually abolished; I am not quite sure which of us came out of it best. So far as his question is concerned, it would be an affront to democracy if the proposals of the independent Boundary Commissions were obstructed.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Is it not also an affront to democracy that the strategy of this Government has been to plan a reduction of the number of MPs from 650 to 600, while in the same period increasing the size of this House by 240-plus life Peers? Could the Minister explain the thinking behind this situation?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that the coalition Government sought to reduce the number of noble Lords by a very substantial number, but because of the failure of his party in the Commons to support it, that Bill did not go through. He will also know that the Lord Speaker has set up a committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, which I understand may report in July. There is a consensus across the House that the numbers need to come down. We look forward to the noble Lord’s proposals, to see how that might be delivered.