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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl of Caithness

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I sincerely wish it were possible to carry this Bill over into the next Session, because there is no doubt whatever that it has overwhelming support in this House in all parties and, I guess, even among the hereditary Peers—but it is not within the power of the House to do that. The Companion to the Standing Orders is quite clear. I reassure my noble friend that if I should be unfortunate enough, despite having been first in the ballot, not to get my Bill on to the statute book this year, despite the wonderful support that it has had, I shall bring in exactly the same Bill in the next Session of Parliament. I know it will succeed some time. It is just a matter of persistence, and I can be extremely persistent if required.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, it might be for the benefit of the House if I speak to my Amendments 58, 59 and 60, which my noble friend Lord Strathclyde mentioned in his speech. I am glad I am now following the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I do not have my name down to 53 amendments, as he claimed. That was a very misleading statement. He also derided the amendment relating to female hereditary Peers. There is a slightly deeper reason for that. My name is not to that amendment, but I think my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, who will doubtless speak for himself on this matter, has introduced a Bill to change the rules regarding succession to hereditary peerages. I believe that it should be the eldest child. If the eldest child of the monarch should succeed, so should the eldest child of a Peer succeed. I would support any Bill in that direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

I do not see the direct relevance of that to what I am saying. I have expressed my views on the 17 and a half million people ad nauseam in this House; to be absolutely clear, I am very much on their side.

What has happened is not just an abuse of the House, a waste of its time and, to a degree, a waste of taxpayers’ money. To be personal about it, it is also a waste of precious Private Members’ time. We rarely get the opportunity to introduce a Private Members’ Bill. It is bad for the House to appear threatening to any future Member who wants to introduce a Private Members’ Bill.

We are closing the debate at 1.30 pm, when I will conclude. But this is a Bill that will not go away; I want to make that quite plain. They all know they are playing King Canute. This Bill will pass. I say that with absolute confidence, although I occasionally wonder whether it will be in my lifetime. The House needs to look very carefully at its procedures to ensure that the farce that we have endured today is not repeated. I hope that the Procedure Committee will see whether there are ways of dealing with this. Otherwise, the risk of further disrepute being brought on our House will only grow.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, once again mentioned my noble friend Lord Trefgarne and myself. I did put my name to a small number of amendments, but the noble Lord cannot accuse either my noble friend or me of filibustering by talking for far too long. We have talked very little, to make a short point. When the noble Lord accepted my amendment in Committee, I sat down immediately, as he will recall. I think he has forgotten one person who has prolonged the proceedings today, and that is the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl of Caithness

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd November 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I am grateful to a number of noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the Bill, and I do not want to add to the points that they made. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, shared a useful piece of information about the views of important people in the Commons in relation to this legislation. It gives me great heart if I am able to think that, should this House pass the Bill, as I very much hope it will, it would be a huge example to almost any other institution of an institution reforming itself in a sensible way.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for that, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who mentioned the need for speed. These by-elections will take place with increasing frequency; that is the inevitable consequence of age. We are talking about people who were identified as the 90 in 1999. There have been 44 by-elections since then—or 44 new Members as a result of by-elections; some have been for two new Peers—but inevitably they will come with greater frequency. There are two in the pipeline. The need to get this Bill through is all the more urgent if we are not to be subject to, it seems to me, the reasonable accusation of looking completely ridiculous with some of these by-elections. The point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, about the effect that an increasing proportion of the membership of the House being hereditary Peers will have on different parties is powerful.

I do not disagree at all with the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, about the need for a cap on the size of the House. I think very strongly that we should reduce the number of people here. But of course, if nothing is done specifically about the hereditary Peers—this is the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown—it will be significantly harder to reduce the size of the House if there are 92 people to whom “two out, one in” does not apply. The stats in the second, most recent report of the Burns committee are quite clear. They are small numbers so one should not draw huge lessons from them, but they make it pretty plain that it is difficult to reduce the size of the House if hereditary Peers are being replaced one-for-one, whereas everyone else is being replaced on the basis of one in for every two out.

This is a big group of amendments and I urge the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, not to press them further, either here or on Report, as they would have the cumulative effect of delaying the Bill’s implementation. I will be kind to him today and say that he is not trying to wreck the Bill with these amendments—though it was hard for me to say that—but they would certainly significantly delay it. One or two of them are, frankly, close to being silly, such as the idea of reviews of the work of both Houses. But let us leave it at that, and I appeal to him not to press them further either here or on Report.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, this has been a useful discussion. I would only say to my noble friend Lord Balfe that I think the McDonnell wing that he mentioned will put into the manifesto exactly what he says, whether this Bill goes through Parliament or not. It was in fact in the 1997 manifesto that all hereditary Peers should go. It is something that I agree with, because I think that all hereditary Peers, and all life Peers, ought to go. That is what I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard: whatever the composition of a House that is not 100% elected, it is easily criticised. That is why I believe that 100% election is much the best way forward for a second Chamber in this country.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did not answer me at all on Amendment 39. I wonder whether he might give that some thought between now and the next stage, because it would not delay the Bill at all; it would merely clarify exactly what the Bill does, which is to abolish hereditary Peers. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I really am grateful for the contributions we have had. I thought pretty much everything that could be said about this Bill had been said at the various stages so far. This is the third day in Committee, which must be unprecedented for a Private Member’s Bill, or close to it anyway. Still, new thoughts arise, not least—I suppose this is not a new thought but it is a very significant one—from my noble friend Lord Foulkes, whose point was embellished with skill and elegance by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, whose clerkly word to describe the allowance of this amendment being tabled to the Bill was “generous”. I shall remember that all-encompassing word, which avoids saying brutally what needs to be said. I was surprised as well that this amendment was in the scope of the Bill. Should the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, decide to bring this back on Report, I hope that they consult the clerkly community, as I am sure they do, and that the clerks will reflect on what has been said today during this debate—particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—and decide that this should not be here. Many of us are perfectly happy about having a statutory Appointments Commission. I am happy about all things in life but I do not want them all tacked on to this Bill. That is all I am saying.

I appreciate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. We have had very few votes, but support for this Bill in this House is overwhelming in all parties and in none, as well as among both life Peers and hereditary Peers. I have no doubt about that. I notice that one of the amendments asks that the Bill should not become operational until a majority of the hereditaries agree to it. This is only anecdotal, but a number of hereditary Peers have come to me to say, “Why on earth do they not let this Bill pass?” That is my appeal to them now.

We will come back to the Bill on Report. We have had a clear indication from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that there is a good chance that the Commons would support it. We would do ourselves no end of good by passing it and we would do ourselves significant damage if we allowed these silly by-elections to continue. Let us try to complete the Committee stage now.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, it made me smile when I heard several noble Lords criticise this proposal because I have had heard equally from noble Lords who want to attach their ideas to other legislation going through the House, their argument being, “We don’t get many chances to discuss bits of legislation so let’s tack it on to this Bill”. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, when he was the Chief Whip, will remember many occasions when amendments were tabled to tack on people’s specific wishes that some would consider not quite in the spirit of the Long Title. However, it was a chance to air a point.

Noble Lords have not criticised the need for a statutory Appointments Commission, although they have said that it would be wrong to have it with this legislation— I remember saying that as a Minister in response to quite a number of amendments.

I have been singled out for trying to delay the Bill. Yes, I have tabled amendments, but until today I think that we have had some six hours of discussion and I reckon that I have spoken for less than a quarter of an hour. I do not think that it is me who is holding up the Bill or discussion on it. I may have put down amendments, but everyone else seems to want to chime in.

I regret that the opportunity has not been taken to put this proposal into the Bill because I do not think that it would cause much of a problem. If everyone wants it, this is a perfect vehicle for taking it forward for the benefit of the future of this House. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl of Caithness

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I would like to add a few words in support of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne’s amendment. I believe the Government should grasp this nettle. I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on this; to many others, this is not a minor matter. There was a solemn and binding commitment in 1999 that we entered into. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that you cannot bind the next Government, but this was a hugely important matter for this House. We were requested by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, on honour, to vote in that election. When I have discussed this with people both within the House and outside it, I am quite surprised by the reactions. In this House I have been told, “It doesn’t really matter in politics; there is no such thing as binding honour”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness]

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Elton and totally agree with what he said.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, I do not think we have covered ourselves in glory over the past 45 minutes. The Commons is not sitting today, so if there is any parliamentary coverage, it will presumably focus on us and this debate. I hope that one or two contributions do not receive a wider audience, because essentially what is happening now is a filibuster on a Bill which had overwhelming support at Second Reading. It is an identical Bill to one that I introduced in the previous Parliament which, likewise, had overwhelming support on Second Reading and was filibustered out of existence in Committee. The principal supporters—organisers, indeed—of this filibuster know that there is a small minority of people opposed to the Bill in this House. That is what the world outside, if it is interested, needs to know. The Bill is simply ending by-elections. I make no apology for repeating that in one of the most recent ones, there was an electorate of three but seven candidates. There is no by-election in the world as absurd as that and yet, amazingly, a number of speakers today want us to continue that system in perpetuity. Let us make no bones about that whatsoever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

I cannot speak for my noble friend, who has spent so much of his life with the Liberal Democrats. I am not sure whether he was a recommendation of the Liberal Democrats or of the Labour Party, but in my case it was on the basis of 60 years’ membership of the Labour Party, of which I am very proud and for which I will continue to do the job here.

I must deal briefly with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, because it needs addressing, which is that somehow we must wait until the Burns report is implemented before we act. I make the very obvious point that the cardinal argument within the Burns report is that we must reduce the size of the House, and the mechanism for doing it would be two out, one in. Since our first debate in Committee, there have been two further by-elections for hereditary Peers. Those two hereditary Peers should have been replaced by one, according to the Burns report, but no, lo and behold, there are two more here. It is essential for anyone who is sincere about wanting to implement the Burns report that we get on and pass my Bill, because it would enable us to reduce the number of hereditary Peers, not precisely arithmetically but in line with the recommendation of the Burns report.

The only consequence of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is not to enlighten anyone; it is simply to delay further progress on the Bill. The two principal—I will not call them culprits, because I am sure they are proud of it—Peers who have relentlessly tried to filibuster the Bill are the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. This time, 55 of the amendments are in their names. We had a similar debate to this before our previous Committee sitting, when there was a long debate on whether to put the Bill into Committee. We are doing that again now, and presumably we will do it again whenever it is next considered in Committee. It is clearly their objective to talk the Bill out.

I simply say this to the two of them: I know that the overwhelming majority of people in this House want the Bill to pass. The exchange of views up to now does not at all proportionately reflect the view in the House because—I am grateful to them for this—the numerous colleagues on all sides of the House who I know support the Bill have not wanted to contribute to the filibuster. A tiny minority is thwarting the clearly expressed view of these Benches, the Liberal Democrat Benches, a large number on the Conservative Benches and the Cross Benches and, in my judgment, a majority of hereditary Peers, any number of whom have come up to me to say that they wish that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, would desist from what they are doing.

They should know better. Between the two of them, they have had about 100 years’ membership of this House. I repeat that because I could barely believe it when I looked it up: 100 years between them. They ought to be getting the hang of the rules by now, one of which is surely that you know when it is time to call a halt. They should call a halt on this and allow the Bill to proceed, because the only effect of what they are doing at the moment is not to improve the Bill or to stop it—they know they cannot do that, they do not remotely have the numbers; every time we have had a vote on the Bill there has been a majority of about 100. They should desist. I fear we now have only two and a half hours, but we had three and a half hours when we began the discussion. I will gladly give way to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, because every time he speaks he gives me greater confidence of my position.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I resent the fact that I have been classed as a filibusterer whose sole intention is to stop this Bill. If your Lordships add up the amount of time I have spoken for, it is comparatively little. I have put forward amendments to improve the Bill and to link it to the Burns report. We put forward amendments to widen the franchise for the by-elections, which the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has just said we did not want to do. We have tried to improve the Bill.

[Lord Grocott]

He has tried to improve the Bill, my Lords? All I can say is: it is the way he tells them. I hope the House will come to a conclusion on this now. If there is a Division I hope that all noble Lords who want progress will vote against it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

Perhaps I could clear this up with a couple of facts. On the question of the party strengths in the House of Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord True, need worry too much about a Conservative leader ensuring that their party strength in the House of Lords remains strong. By way of illustration, the Labour Party was elected with a huge majority of 157 in 1997, at which time there was a colossal majority of some 200 or 300 Conservative Peers in the House of Lords. Many of them—90% of them—went in the 1999 Act and we have only the cream left: the 10% who were elected, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, among them. However, it was in 2006, nine years after the Labour Government were elected, that Labour became the biggest party, although obviously not the majority party. So the Tories were the biggest party for the first nine years of a Labour Government with a majority of 157 in the House of Commons. The noble Lord need not worry: the Tories are much better at making sure that they have friends in this House. Does he know how long it was after the 2010 election before normal service was resumed and the Tories were the biggest party again? It was just two years: by 2012 the Tories were the biggest party. So if the noble Lord, Lord True, is having sleepless nights about Tory leaders not appointing enough Tory Peers, I think that he can sleep well.

On the other crucial fact, with respect, talk about making a mountain out of a molehill over the disproportionate effect of my Bill on the future composition of parties in the House of Lords! I have been doing calculations on a sheet of paper while the noble Lord has been talking and just for the record, since the 1999 Act there have been, I make it, 34 hereditary Peer by-elections, roughly one third of the total. Of those, nine were Conservatives. So over a period of 19 years, although he used the phrase “striking heavily” about the effect on party representation in the House of Lords, the Conservative membership would be down nine if my Bill had been in operation. Just for the record, the Labour Party would have been down two, so the net benefit to the Labour Party in opposition over the Government would have been seven Peers over 19 years. Once again, I suggest to the noble Lord that he can sleep well still, even with that anxiety hanging over him about the future.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, the reason for the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned is that when the elections took place in 1999, it was by and large the younger and most active hereditaries who were elected. It is not surprising that the gathering-in rate of Conservative hereditary Peers has not been as great as it is about to become. We are all getting older and my noble friend Lord True has raised an important point.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said nothing about protecting the Cross Benches. He waxed lyrical about how a Conservative Prime Minister would be keen to protect these Benches but with the possible implementation of the Burns report ahead of us, we are talking about a size limit on the House along with the importance of keeping the Cross Benches. Perhaps he could tell us how the Cross Benches are going to keep their numbers up to those required.

Procedure Committee

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl of Caithness

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

So he is a man of few permanent political convictions. The voting was based on the alternative-vote system. There were six rounds of balloting and the winner won by a margin of 12 votes to five—a majority of seven. I have fought a lot of elections but I do not know, on the basis of the votes given, whether that would be a marginal or a safe seat. As far as I know, no psephologist has analysed the figures in any detail to see what significance, if any, they have in terms of swing or the likely outcome of the next general election, or anything of that sort.

However, I say to the House that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is trying to do the impossible. He is trying to make a system work when it is fundamentally flawed and deserves to be scrapped. If I dare say so, I think that he tests the patience of the House by persisting in blocking a Bill which would solve this problem very simply and would hurt no one.

The noble Lord’s proposal, which, in my view, the Procedure Committee very wisely decided not to proceed with, was simply that the whole House should take part in these elections. I do not want to weigh everyone down with statistics but, just for information, the last time the whole House took part in a by-election for the replacement of a hereditary Peer was in March 2017. Then, the electorate—the whole House—was 803 and 346 people turned out to vote. That was a turnout of 43%, which, for interest, was lower than the lowest turnout for any of the 650 House of Commons seats at the last general election, so I am happy to say that there was no great enthusiasm among Members of this House even for an electorate of the whole House. However, of course that does not deal with the fundamental problem, which is that the only people eligible to stand are hereditary Peers. There are 92 reserved places and, of the 211 people on the official list, 210 are men, although all that is unaffected by the proposal put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. This matter is urgent, not least because two by-elections are pending.

There is one rather sombre piece of information that we all have to consider at some stage. There were 92 names on the original list in 1999, when the exempted hereditary Peers remained in the House. Of those 92, 33 have been replaced since then in by-elections. That leaves 59 still potentially pending. However, the inevitable consequence of Father Time is that those elected in 1999 and still here are getting on a bit, which I think is the actuarial term. The by-elections of the 59 still pending from the original 92 will inevitably come up with monotonous regularity, and that monotony will be exacerbated by me repeating this speech on numerous occasions every time this occurs—for which I apologise to the House, but it needs to be dealt with soon.

All I ask of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is that he stops playing King Canute. These by-elections will cease—the House wills them to cease. Please do not block the Bill any more but allow it to pass through and achieve something which virtually the whole House knows is both inevitable and desirable.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask a question about transparency. Would it not be within the bounds of possibility that whatever is discussed in something like the Procedure Committee is noted for us? If this matter had not been raised, one would not know as a Back-Bencher what had been discussed. Surely it would be quite easy to say that this matter was discussed but not agreed to.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl of Caithness

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[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]

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Earl of Caithness

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

[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.