House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

95: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: impact of this Act on the effectiveness of the House of LordsWithin two years of the day on which this Act is passed, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish a report on the impact of this Act on the effectiveness of the House of Lords at discharging its core functions.”

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 95, I will speak to my other amendments in this group. I very much hope that we will be able to amend this Bill so that the House of Lords, as it carries on from it, is a great deal better at improving and reforming itself, and being a reflective, ever-improving place than the House of Lords has been in the 30 or so years that I have been here. This amendment is a small attempt to add some drive and mechanism for self-improvement to the Bill. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, within this group, I will refer to my Amendments 96 and 99. Amendment 96 focuses on four connected aspects, including the quality of legislative and government scrutiny that the House of Lords provides; the relationship between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament; the balance of power between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament; and the example that the Parliament of the United Kingdom sets to the Commonwealth, member states of the Council of Europe and the rest of the world.

Within 12 months of this Bill becoming an Act, a duty would be imposed on the Secretary of State to produce a detailed review of how these four aspects have been affected. Central to them is

“the quality of legislative and government scrutiny that the House of Lords provides”,

as expressed in proposed new subsection (b). Your Lordships will agree that it is that attribute of our present House which must continue within a reformed House, where its quality function takes precedent and to which membership composition is a secondary and subservient consideration.

Thereby, this consideration connects to the three other aspects, beginning with the relationship between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament. As indicated in proposed new subsection (a), within a reformed House, the sustained quality of function of the present House has to enable the same constructive working relationship as that at present between this House as a revising Chamber of Parliament and the Government in another place, the House of Commons.

This is not so much to challenge or contradict legislation proposed by the Government, but instead constantly and competently to revise and improve whatever that proposed legislation might be. Consequently, as a by-product and in the light of the huge number of amendments accepted every year, cross-party solidarity and resolve develop among parliamentarians, both here and in another place, to help the Government of the day to improve their initial versions of proposed legislation.

That in turn reflects an achievable balance of power between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament, which is referred to by proposed new subsection (c). Within the United Kingdom, such balance is dependent on the democratic forces of local authorities and regional Parliaments, and the opportunity for those energies to contribute towards a desirable balance of power between the Westminster national government and Parliament.

This opportunity comes as a result of a reformed Westminster second Chamber to which the majority of its temporal Members, serving for 15 years, might be indirectly or directly elected, coming to the House with the authority of parliamentarians representing all parts of the United Kingdom and therefore assisting the balance between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament—exactly in the necessary direction implied by Quintin Hogg when, in view of our voting system allowing large government majorities for one political party or another, he coined the term “elective dictatorship” as he warned of the risk within the United Kingdom of political imbalance and extremes. Here, I am very grateful to his son, my noble friend Lord Hailsham, for his support for Amendment 96 and, in particular, of its proposed new subsection (c), in favour of an improved balance between His Majesty’s Government and Parliament.

Proposed new subsection (d) highlights the example that the United Kingdom Parliament sets to the Commonwealth, the 46 member states of the Council of Europe and the rest of the world, in which regard your Lordships will agree that if a reformed second Chamber can strengthen democracy in the United Kingdom, by example it may be able to do so elsewhere as well.

Amendment 99 also refers to the duty of the Secretary of State to carry out a review within 12 months of the new Act, yet it also outlines various other proposed amendments already debated. All these have in common that they seek to sustain the present quality of function of this House, where numbers in a reformed House are capped at 620, with 20 Lords spiritual and 600 temporal Members, of whom the majority are of political Members, with the government and opposition parties having exactly the same numbers, and where, through HOLAC, the numbers of non-political Cross-Benchers are increased.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thought I had commented on it at the beginning. The simple fact is that the idea that you do not do anything until you do everything is not acceptable. It has not worked. We have introduced a staged process of reform. This is the first part of that reform—clearly stated in our manifesto—and we will move on to other aspects of our manifesto commitment in consultation with Members of this House. I ask that the Member withdraws the amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on their other amendments and to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for his response. I was here for the previous Bill, of course, and can tell the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that his Front Bench was a great deal more convincing then about the inevitability of rapid progress to further change than his Front Bench is being now. We have heard nothing of ideas or substance from the Front Bench. It feels to me, just like it has on every previous occasion, that this will not happen.

Under those circumstances, something like Amendment 11 from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is crucial. The noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Blencathra, have explored mechanisms that may be combined quite well with Amendment 11 to make it more effective. Something along those lines is what this House should send back to the other place so that the momentum for change is reinforced and, as far as possible, this House retains a degree of initiative in pushing that forward.

We need change, as the speakers to this group of amendments have said. We need that progress towards change to be public and believable, and we are not getting it at the moment. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 95 withdrawn.