House of Lords Reform

Lord Horam Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, I too welcome the conciliatory tone in which the Leader of the House introduced this debate. I welcome this debate, which is obviously looking at the whole area of the second Chamber, not just this particular Bill, judgment on which is taking place in the other Chamber this evening.

I am a long-standing member of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, which has for a long time been well chaired by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, and now also by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. The point of that group is that we believe not in an elected second Chamber but that this Chamber and all its valuable work can be improved. Various schemes have come forward over the last few years—the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for example, had a notable example of what can be done—to do to improve the working of the Chamber in many respects.

One of them, of course, has been the question of the numbers. Although the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, pointed out that it is not necessarily a first-order issue, it is an issue, and it is certainly one with the public. Again, a lot of work has gone into that, and in particular the idea that it should be targeted on the question of participation—the extent to which people are active in the second Chamber—has been a very important issue.

However, over the last 14 years, the Conservative Party was in power and very little was achieved—almost nothing. There was a certain amount of optimism during the period of the noble Baroness, Lady May—fortunately now in this Chamber—but very little otherwise, and we are stuck with the fact that there are now more Peers than there ever were before.

We have to face the fact, realistically, as politicians or not politicians—whichever you like to call us—that we now have a Labour Government who have a clear mandate and a very clear policy in this area: first, to remove the hereditary Peers, and secondly, to look also at the people over 80. I am 85 so am in that category. The numbers are very similar. We in the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber have always talked of about 600 or so; that would be the right sort of level for the second Chamber. The numbers for the Government’s approach will be rather smaller than that; it could well get down to 450 or 500. That is the sort of level they are talking about.

I am opposed in principle to hereditary Peers being elected, and I would like to carry on rather longer myself even though I am 85. However, the fact is that we cannot argue with the end result, which is a smaller Chamber. We are not in a position to dispute that, given that we had our opportunity to go about it in one way we thought best. We have to accept that the objective is the same: a smaller Chamber. It is not the way I would have done it but sometimes, frankly, one should not allow the best to be the enemy of the good, and the good is a smaller Chamber. I think that if, as usual, the House behaved itself very well and made generous offers to those who were removed from the Chamber, that would be a very sensible way forward.

The other point I would like to make is that one thing the campaign has looked at over the years is the regional balance in the Chamber—an issue that has come up in this debate. The fact is that, according to the stats from the Library, 24% of us are registered as living in London and 22% in the south-east, so 46% of the whole Chamber is of a London orientation. Only 3% or 4% are registered in the north-west, 3% or 4% in the north-east and only about 5% in Scotland, for heaven’s sake. I cannot remember the figure for Wales, which has been mentioned in previous remarks.

All this means that people perceive us as being out of touch with people in the rest of the country—in the provinces of England. That looks bad, is bad and detracts from our authority because the House of Commons could always say, “It’s all very well listening to you but you do not reflect the people as we do”. That makes it more difficult for us. At the end of the day, if we get to a significantly smaller Chamber with a better regional balance and that is the end result of what the Government do, I will applaud it.