House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, this group and the next group of amendments all seek to either defer the implementation of the Bill or to set conditions on its implementation. The reason for that second point has to do with various other changes that noble Lords wish to make in how the House is constituted and behaves, which it believes that it is most likely to achieve by setting those conditions. I disagree with that; I think that the simplest and most sensible thing is to pass this Bill as it is and proceed to look at the other things, as I will now suggest.

Early in these debates, lost in the mists of history, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that he thought that it was unfortunate that the powers that be had allowed amendments on such a wide range of things, and I said that I agreed with him. To a limited extent at least, I have changed my mind, because the earlier debates around retirement, participation and attendance demonstrated that there was a very considerable degree of agreement in your Lordships’ House. Hopefully, that gives us a basis for going forward that did not exist before—and that was a good thing.

The question is how we go forward. An assumption has been that the only way to make those significant further changes is by further legislation. As I said earlier in these debates, I am very wary of that, because the House would cease to be a self-regulating House and would become a Commons-regulated House. The House of Commons would determine what it said about when we should retire, how often we should come and how we should behave when we are here.

Knowing some of my new colleagues, I can quite well imagine that a lot of them think that 80 is far too old for anybody to be in your Lordships’ House. They will think, “Well, I’ll make a bit of a name for myself by putting down 65”. I can see a lot of people thinking, “That’s a jolly good idea—we’ll show ’em”. The arguments that we have heard ad infinitum here about how wonderful we are cut zero ice at the other end of this Palace. I can well imagine that we would find ourselves with a different retirement age to the one that is currently likely to form the nearest thing to consensus in your Lordships’ House.

I equally think that colleagues at the other end, who know very little or nothing about the way we work, would be appalled that we think the kind of attendance level we have been discussing—10%, 15% or 20%—is even vaguely reasonable. They think that we are here to do a job and you cannot do a job on one day a fortnight. I am therefore strongly of the view—and I hope the Leader will take a lead on this—that we should look at ways, which I believe exist, under which we can introduce retirement, participation and attendance norms that would satisfy your Lordships’ House and continue the principle that we are a self-regulating House. I hope she might take a lead by convening a group herself or establishing another group to do the task, within a set timescale, of reaching consensus—or rather, something that nearly everybody can live with—on those areas, so that we can deal with them ourselves.

Apart from anything else, beyond thinking that no further legislation is possible in this Parliament, anybody who has been in government will find it difficult to believe that any Government would introduce a House of Lords reform Bill in two successive Sessions. That is very unlikely for any Government. When I was the Government Deputy Chief Whip, I was on the future legislation committee with Members of the Commons—I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, chaired it at one point. I pity the poor Minister who came to argue before that committee that they wanted a second House of Lords reform Bill within 18 months. I just do not think it is doable.

There is a way forward for all those second-stage reforms. Then there is the third stage: the possibility of the House of Lords being elected. There is a very easy way of dealing with that within the context of this Bill. It is simply for everybody to vote for a resubmitted Amendment 11, in my name, which I shall put down before Report, calling on the Government to start drafting a Bill which looks at electing your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does the noble Lord accept that, if you are going to elect your Lordships’ House, you have to decide what it will do beforehand?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

No.