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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Cormack

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

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, before I speak to my amendment, I say—on behalf of everyone in the House, I am sure—how glad I am that there will be an opportunity for a minute’s silence at 11 am in the wake of the thoroughly barbaric and appalling outrage in New Zealand.

I also very much hope that we will be able to conclude proceedings on this Bill in good time to enable the Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, which potentially affects hundreds of thousands of people in this country, to have a decent Second Reading.

My amendment is essentially a tidying-up amendment and a simple one, and I have discussed it with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who has kindly indicated to me that he is minded to accept it. There are 92 hereditary Peers in your Lordships’ House, but only 90 of them are subject to the by-election provision. I strongly support the Bill—the noble Lord knows that: I have spoken in its favour and may have to do so again—but there are two hereditary Peers who are not subject to by-elections, who are here by virtue of the fact that they hold important offices of state. Neither of them ever participates politically in the proceedings of your Lordships’ House, but the Lord Great Chamberlain has the duty from time to time to deliver messages to your Lordships’ House. Therefore, his membership is important although peripheral. The Earl Marshal has the very real burden of being in charge of notable affairs of state. Again, it is appropriate that he should be a Member of your Lordships’ House, and the measure adopted some 20 years ago accepted that.

All I suggest in the amendment is that we make it abundantly clear that the Bill is dealing with what it says it is dealing with—by-elections—and that those two posts are not relevant to the Bill and therefore should not form part of it. I beg to move.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, someone from this side should perhaps say a few words at this stage. I wholly associate myself—I am sure everyone in the House does—with the remarks made about the events resulting in our minute’s silence at 11 am. I fear that that might be the end of the consensual feeling I am able to express today.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, began his remarks by saying that he thought the Bill was unlikely to become law, and then spent 16 minutes making it less likely to become law. He knows perfectly well what he is doing; he has been here for 34 years, so I imagine that he is getting the hang of it by now. Mind you, he is a newcomer compared with our friends the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who has been here for 49 years, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who has been here for 56 years. So they have had 140 years between them, and that is a pretty good innings. Maybe they can listen to some more recent voices.

I simply say this to the noble Lord: it is a pity he was not able to join us in Committee to familiarise himself with what has happened to the Bill so far. It was introduced 18 months ago in September 2017, when I was lucky enough to draw number one in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills, which should give one a reasonable hope of the Bill passing through its stages in the Lords. It had its Second Reading then; it has since had three days in Committee, which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was unable to get along to.

Had the noble Lord made it to the third day in Committee, he would now be aware that the precise amendment he is proposing now was debated at length and overwhelmingly opposed by those who spoke, including no less an authority on procedure—admittedly, not in this House—than the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who pointed out, quite correctly, that this is a single-issue Bill that I am proposing. It is a three-clause Bill on one page. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, in terms, that to introduce this kind of additional related material into a single-issue Bill of this sort was a rather “generous” way of interpreting our procedures. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, knows perfectly well that, if this amendment were accepted or debated in any detail now, it would add enormously to the time involved in establishing this Bill, it would add to the costs of the Bill and, most importantly of all, it would do what I am sure his amendment is intended to do and make it even less likely that this Bill will become law.

I am so conscious on these occasions that we have these ragged debates—we have had several on this—that are unintelligible to the public outside. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, suggested that he was a moderniser; well, not in this respect. It needs someone—and it falls to me—to remind the House why we are doing this and why I am introducing the Bill. It is simply to end these idiotic by-elections, which are occurring with increasing frequency, in which only hereditary Peers on the hereditary Peers list, of which there are 211—I remind the House that 210 of them are men—can take part. In the first 10 years of the 20 years for which this system has been in operation, there were 10 by-elections. In the second 10 years, to date there have been 26. There is one pending, which bears a moment’s thought. It is due to be announced on 27 March. There are 28 electors who will elect this new Member of Parliament on 27 March, and 14 candidates; that is two electors per candidate. The cost of the by-election will be £600. Noble Lords might think that is not much, but I think—my maths is not very good—that is roughly £8 per vote. I would do it for less, should the offer be made to me. Needless to say, it is an all-male shortlist, which is quite unusual these days and takes some defending—which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is presumably capable of doing.

Most of what I want to emphasise today is what is happening in this House. In the last 10 days, 63 amendments have been put down to this simple, three-clause Bill, 53 of them by the same two Members—our old friends the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. They have degrouped all the amendments—I will not go into the details of degrouping, because I really would lose an audience if I were to try to do so—but it simply means that today we are discussing 42 groups of amendments. Most Chief Whips will say that if you are very lucky you can get through six groups in an hour—we are certainly not doing that now—so I reckon it would take seven hours of debate to get through those 42 groups. Of course, every one of them needs opposing, because most of them are ridiculous.

I will give two examples; I will spare my noble friend Lord Adonis on this side—I think he would win the prize for the silliest amendment. Actually, I cannot resist; I will mention it in a moment. But there are two that I will mention now. Amendment 47 says that in order for the Act to be implemented there would need to be an approving ballot among not just hereditary Peers here, but all hereditary Peers. There are about 900. I have not counted them, but I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, knows how many there are. I have no doubt that many of them are living abroad and are in various stages of excitement about the arguments that they can deploy—that is as politely as I can put it. The idea that you can organise a ballot of 900 people worldwide in order to sort this out is just ridiculous.

The amendment that takes second prize is Amendment 54, which says that the Act will be implemented when the number of women hereditary Peers equals the number of women hereditary Peers who were Members of the House of Lords at the time of the 1999 Act—you know it makes sense. There were four women hereditary Peers at the time of the 1999 Act. The progressive series of elections has resulted in the fact that there is now one—so the number has gone down from four to one—and the Act would come into effect until that number got back up to four. Please spare us that amendment. I ask that all the amendments be withdrawn or not moved, but let us concentrate to begin with on the most idiotic amendments. The idea that in the 21st century we should be arguing about whether we should have one woman or four women among the 92 reserved places is beyond satire.

However, I have to give first prize to my noble friend Lord Adonis. He says—

[Lord Cormack]

I support everything that the noble Lord, my friend, has said, but would it not look ridiculous in the country if this debate prevented a proper discussion of the Cohabitation Rights Bill, which is due for a Second Reading and in which many people throughout the country are taking a real interest?

[Lord Grocott]

That is absolutely right. This Report stage is scheduled to finish at 1.30 pm. That is ample time to deal with any reasonable amendments that anyone might wish to put down. It is generous time—but I am losing track of my desire to get to my noble friend Lord Adonis’s amendment. It would provide that, when the next by-election takes place, which we know will be on 27 March, when there are 28 electors, as I pointed out, the vacancy would be filled by a vote of the whole of the electorate of the United Kingdom. I will say that again because I do not think it has quite sunk in; the electorate would be the whole electorate of the United Kingdom. I cannot tot that up off the top of my head, but the electorate is about 40 million, so I suggest gently to my noble friend, who is known for his hyperbole, that to substitute 40 million electors for 28 electors to elect a hereditary Peer is overdoing it, so I hope my noble friend will have enough sense not to press that amendment.

This is all serious as far as I am concerned, but there is a real test here, particularly for the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. It is this: they can decide to expedite these amendments, and move them if they must, to conclude this Report stage by 1.30 pm. The House would then be orderly, it would have given the Bill more than enough time—more than anyone could reasonably expect a Bill of this length to have given to it—or they will be in grave danger of bringing the whole proceedings of this House into serious disrepute if they do not withdraw the vast majority of the amendments.

Ivory Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Cormack

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, obviously I will reflect on what my noble friend has said. I wish to test the opinion of the House on a later amendment but, for the moment, I will withdraw this one.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, sits down, he is normally on the ball on such issues but unless the Companion has changed, this is not an appropriate way to put down an amendment on Third Reading. That is done only on a narrow basis, including due to new information or clarification of something that was unclear at an earlier stage. I think he may have a bit of trouble with the Table Office should he try to put down a similar amendment on Third Reading. I am surprised by what he has said, as he is so fluent in these matters. I hope he will acknowledge that, on this, I am right and he is wrong.

[Lord Cormack]

I am aware of the general position—of course I am. But we are at the first debate and we do not know quite how the Bill will emerge today from Report. We will then reflect. The noble Lord would agree, I am sure, that that is entirely logical and sensible. For the moment, however, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Cormack

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

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench is being provoked beyond endurance. We have just seen a most appalling waste of time. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, moved his amendment, as he was entirely entitled to do, but he did not put in Tellers. There is no way of recording the enormous majority that displayed itself in the Not-Content Lobby. Had that vote come to a proper conclusion, I doubt whether he and his colleagues would have reached double figures. They certainly would not have got much beyond that. This is a disgraceful abuse of not just your Lordships’ House but the institution of Parliament. If my noble friend on the Front Bench is not provoked beyond endurance, I am.

[Lord Grocott]

I agree wholeheartedly with what has been said and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, should reflect on it as well. He knows perfectly well that the one thing he dare not do in the proceedings today is to put any of these in many cases ridiculous amendments to the vote, because he would be defeated overwhelmingly, as on previous occasions. Just for the record, in this group, Amendment 11 states that:

“Standing Orders must provide that vacancies amongst the 90 excepted hereditary peers are filled by a method which ensures that the excepted hereditary peer is younger than the average age of members of the House of Lords at the time the vacancy occurs”.


Quite simply, that means that we would continue to have by-elections. This is a proposal to defeat the Bill. The Bill is to end the by-elections; this amendment would ensure that they continued. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will beg leave to withdraw his amendment but, if he does not, I hope that he puts in tellers and votes this time and no longer abuses the procedures of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

Before the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, rises to speak, perhaps I may say this to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. He has every right to suggest that this place should be swept away and replaced by a directly elected second Chamber. That is a perfectly valid constitutional point of view. But for reasons that have been advanced time and time again, many of us in this House do not believe that and we refute it. We believe that this House is complementary to another place and that it adds value to the constitutional system. We believe that the unambiguous democratic mandate lies at the other end of the corridor but that we have something, both individually and collectively, free from many of the shackles of party and buttressed by a large Cross-Bench element, that we can contribute. That is an equally valid point of view to that of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. While I respect his view as valid, I would ask him to reciprocate that feeling.

[Lord Grocott]

Perhaps I may have a word with my noble friend, who I always admire for his psychic powers, which I do not possess. He knows exactly why I do what I am doing at all stages. My noble friend is totally opposed to this Bill. I think he is the only person on these Benches—someone will stop me if I am wrong—or even on the Liberal Democrat Benches who is. I am grateful to him for clarifying his position. Whether he is sitting in the right place or not is only for him to judge.

I say this to my noble friend: I wish that he had made this statement a bit earlier. I had an identical Bill in the previous Parliament which received a Second Reading and a Committee stage. I do not recall seeing him in his place to express his view. He certainly did not take part in the Committee stage of this Bill on 23 March this year. I looked for him in the Division Lobby.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

Of course they do.

[Lord Grocott]

What is interesting to note, my Lords, is that both of them have been on leave of absence. One is no longer on that leave, but for at least the last several years that I have been looking at it, they have been on permanent leave of absence. That includes general election periods and the State Opening of Parliament. While I cannot pretend to know the constitution in enough depth to know whether they are allowed to stand in a certain place at a certain time, I can assure the noble Duke that the machinery of the State Opening has functioned perfectly well when these two people have been on leave of absence from the House of Lords.

House of Lords: Size

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Cormack

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to acknowledge that this is not an amendment that thrills me, not least because it seems to me to offend one of the great principles of social and economic thought, enunciated in a wondrous book, of which this year is the 60th anniversary—namely, Parkinson’s Law or the Pursuit of Progress. Noble Lords who are old enough to remember it will know that that law as enunciated was that work expands to fill the time available. I have no doubt, as far as negotiations in relation to the EU are concerned, that, whenever the end date was pronounced to be appropriate, there would be no difficulty in filling the time available, and everything that has happened so far confirms me in that impression.

The other related observation about human behaviour, which sadly has governed a lot of my life—I am not proud of it—but seems to be almost an abiding characteristic of the European Union is that you never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. I think that we have seen enough of negotiations EU-style, with late-night ministerial meetings and early-morning press conferences, to know that lastminute.com is one of the abiding principles by which the European Union reaches its decisions.

What troubles me about the amendment—although I shall lose no sleep about what happens to it—is that, whatever the mover’s intentions, the undoubted interpretation from the world outside will be that this amendment is designed to put further down the track the date on which we shall leave the European Union. That is an observation that I hear time and again in talking to people. After all, in March next year it will be almost three years since the British people made that historic and momentous decision.

I cannot help being vain enough to mention just two points that I made at Second Reading about this House and its treatment of this Bill. I simply said that, in all our discussions, there will be an elephant in the room—the chasm between the spread of opinion on Brexit in this House and the spread of opinion in the country at large. I think that I can be allowed to make special reference to my own region of the West Midlands, which was the strongest voting region in favour of leaving the European Union. Coincidentally, the House’s own research tells us that one of the least represented regions in the United Kingdom in this House is the West Midlands. The other two, by the way, are the north-east and east Midlands. Those three regions amount to the three most strongly Brexit parts of the country. It would be nice to have a lot more people here from the West Midlands—and, should the Government want any advice on people whom they might think of putting in the House in order to address that regional imbalance, I would certainly give it to them. But this mismatch is the elephant in the room.

I repeat what I said then: for all that we may try and decipher the motives of people who voted leave, the most generally accepted one is that people felt there was a chasm. So many people in this country sensed that Westminster, and Members in both Houses, were not listening to what they were saying. At the start of the Bill, I was fearful that this House would make that anxiety even more justified, and I have neither seen nor heard anything at Second Reading, in Committee or on Report that has given me any reason whatever to doubt that judgment. We have passed 11 substantial amendments already. There is no doubt that they were all well presented and for good, rational reasons, although I did not agree with them all. However, they have the compound effect of it appearing to be the case that this House is trying to delay, to block or, in the case of my noble friend Lord Adonis, who has been honest enough to say so throughout, to reverse the decision which the people made two and a half years ago. That has undoubtedly been the impression that we have been presenting.

Of course, people say that that is our duty; it is what the House of Lords is for. I agree that it is a perfectly legitimate objective for this House to make the House of Commons think again on any Bill. However, this is not any old Bill. This Bill has the authority of a referendum, with an unprecedented vote, to back and sustain its objectives. It has been moved inexorably on its way by the votes in both Houses to implement Article 50. This House did it; so did the House of Commons. The Bill is an inevitable and necessary consequence of the referendum and of the votes in these two Houses.

[Lord Cormack]

It is also a Bill which is capable of improvement, as is proved by the fact that the Government have put down many amendments themselves.

[Lord Grocott]

I agree that that is our job. The Government, and the House of Commons, can be asked to think again. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and other noble Lords who have made this point on a number of occasions, will agree with the proposition I am about to make. If the Commons does think again on some of these amendments, and sends them back here, our job is then completed. I think that is the consequence of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and is, surely, the way we should proceed.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Grocott and Lord Cormack

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I have never seen the word “canvas” in Erskine May—I do not know quite what my noble friend refers to. However, we know that the House of Commons can pass legislation if it wants to; it can be introduced by a Private Member’s Bill if required, although obviously not on a matter like this. Legislation can be introduced—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Surely if we in this House pass this amendment, the House of Commons can send it back, and no serious-minded Peers in your Lordships’ House would seek to resist the power of the House of Commons. It is being given a chance, and if it does not like it, it can tell us where to get off.

[Lord Grocott]

I hope all noble Lords were listening carefully to that. A lot of noble Lords were saying, “Hear, hear”, so should the House of Commons send this back to us, I very much hope that what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said is correct, and we would press the matter no further. Undoubtedly, the House of Commons can send amendments back or not as it chooses.

The related point I want to make—apart from stating what I think is the obvious in a parliamentary democracy, that Parliament, or the House of Commons, is supreme—is the reference that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made to his concern: if the Government’s conclusion of its negotiation with the EU 27 were rejected, what would happen next? If the Government were to lose any vote on the cardinal element of their raison d’être since the general election—namely, implementing the decision of the people that was made in the referendum—that would be the end of the Government, unless the whole constitution is rewritten and turned on its head. The Government would have to resign if that were to happen. How could they possibly continue? We keep hearing about the number of Bills that are related to our departure from the European Union. If that were to happen, how on earth could the Government remain in office? Of course, that may be a good or a bad thing.