House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Horam Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I first congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, on her entirely delightful valedictory speech. As she knows, I was once an MP for Gateshead, and I know her area well. She is a doughty champion for that part of the world, which does need champions. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Brady on his excellent speech. He was a marvellously discreet chairman of the 1922 Committee. I have not yet read the book, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, has, but I hope I have no mention in it at all—my noble friend Lord Brady is nodding. I might buy it now—who knows? There will be more indiscretion in that book.

Having been an MP for 31 years and having spent 11 years in this House, I am absolutely persuaded that we need major change in our parliamentary system if we are to improve the level of government in this country. My concern about this particular Bill is that it tackles, as a priority, the wrong target. The target should be not the House of Lords but the House of Commons, where things are going seriously wrong.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, mentioned a very interesting book, which I have read, and reread recently. I have recommended it to my stepson, who has recently become the MP for Spelthorne. It is called How Westminster Works … And Why it Doesn’t, by Ian Dunt, who is a Liberal Democrat and therefore very useful and objective about such matters. He makes the point that one of the only two things that really work in the whole of Westminster is the House of Lords and its scrutiny of legislation. One thing that the noble and learned Lord did not mention in his speech, because he is a kind man, is that the book equally condemns the lack of scrutiny in the House of Commons.

We all know why that is. It was not quite the same in the 1970s, but in the last 20 or so years the timetabling of Bills has reached extraordinary levels. The life has almost been taken out of them, and when Bills have not been timetabled there have not been Bills at all. There have been proposals for which general scrutiny has been avoided. There is a real problem in the House of Commons, which we should address before we address the House of Lords.

There is a way in which we could do that comparatively easily, and I commend it to the Government. I know they have set up a committee to look at the House of Commons as well, but I understand that, at the moment, it is dealing with the behaviour of Members of the House of Commons. That may well need addressing, I fully admit—we are much better behaved here. It is also looking into second jobs and matters of that kind, so they are doing something sensible there. However, the real issue is how the Commons scrutinise the Government and deal with legislation.

The way forward, if I may say so, is to abolish Public Bill Committees and send Bills to Select Committees. I was chairman of a Select Committee in the House of Commons—the Environmental Audit Committee—for six years. Those committees do a serious job: they get people together and they look at evidence. It is astonishing how ideological differences disappear when confronted by the facts. Select Committees produce reports, and I never had a single vote when I was chairing a committee. We managed to agree, even though many of us approached environmental issues from diametrically opposed positions. That would be a way forward for the House of Commons to generally modernise things, without too much disruption. They do it in Denmark, and I saw it working there 20 years ago. I watched the Danish Parliament in action, and that is what it was doing. There are ways forward here, which I commend to the Government, that do not depend on this sort of Bill.

The Government have said that they want to do something now, if not the whole thing. I understand that; I agree that it is often a pragmatic and sensible way forward. The danger is that they just do this. There is a window for change, which disappears after a period and then no further change takes place. That is what happened 25 years ago; that is why we have had no change for 25 years. The appetite for change disappeared under the weight of other considerations. The danger for the Government is that they have a big majority, with a lot of desire for change, yet, at the end of the day, they will produce a mouse because they have not sufficiently prioritised and do not have the right plan, and have not gone forward with real dynamism.

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.