House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct in terms of the technicalities of what was in the coalition agreement of 2010. However, it was argued and voted on overwhelmingly by this House and the other place in 2013 that there were many reasons why the Boundary Commission proposals should not go ahead at that point, one of which was the failure to make progress on Lords reform. Reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 MPs to 600 MPs was not appropriate when we did not reform the House of Lords and make government more accountable in that way.

So now we have to look again at the other measures that were proposed in the Steel Bill, including the ending of by-elections to replace hereditary Peers. Parliamentary by-elections to elect MPs have been a major feature of my political life. However, I cringe with embarrassment at the holding of by-elections in this place in which as few as three Members of your Lordships’ House, who initially inherited their positions here based perhaps upon what their ancestors did centuries ago, choose to elect someone to help formulate the laws of the land from a shortlist of as few as three other people who can be considered by virtue also of what their ancestors may have done.

All of us enjoy showing family, friends and guests around the House, particularly, I would suggest, those from overseas. Some of them come from established democracies and some of them come from places struggling to establish democratic principles. But none of them can understand the archaic way in which we are still choosing some of the people to sit in the second Chamber of our Parliament—supposedly the mother of parliaments. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, not a single woman has ever been elected in this way, as most hereditary peerages descend down the male line.

A year ago, the Guardian published a letter from me saying:

“The election by hereditary peers of the ninth Duke of Wellington (Report, 16 September) to the House of Lords by 21 votes over the Marquess of Abergavenny and the Earl of Harrowby (six votes each) is incomprehensible by any democratic standard”.

On 3 December 2010, in an earlier debate on this subject, I said that,

“the farcical process we have in this House of holding by-elections to elect hereditary Peers brings the House into disrepute. These by-elections have little more resemblance to democracy than the campaign run by Lord Blackadder when he ran the by-election campaign to elect Baldrick in the rotten borough of Dunny-on-the-Wold, where Blackadder was the only elector”.—[Official Report, 3/12/10; col. 1696.]

I was wrong, of course, to describe Edmund Blackadder at that point as a Lord; he was merely a voter in that incarnation—albeit the only voter. In that series, Baldrick was later appointed to the House of Lords by Prince George. But if they had both been appointed in real life, their descendants might now be standing as rival candidates, hatching cunning plans to win by-elections in order to get back into this place.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is amusing the House tremendously but he is talking about a work of fiction. I know that the Liberal Democrats have difficulty distinguishing the difference between fact and fiction, but if the noble Lord could stick to fact, I think that the House would find it very helpful.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, having tried to describe to visitors the current system of electing hereditary Members to this place, I know that they think that is a work of fiction.

More seriously, it is now 106 years since the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith promised that the hereditary principle would be replaced by the popular principle in determining the composition of this House. That was agreed then by both Houses. However, having listened a few moments ago to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I was reminded of the view that perhaps only in this House could over 100 years be considered too short a time in which to consider such a principle. But not for me and my party. And we certainly consider that the 17 years since the Weatherill amendment introduced as a temporary measure the concept of by-elections to top up the number of hereditary Peers has been too long. We on these Benches did not agree with that amendment in the first place and would have preferred to see the Parliament Act used, if necessary, and so we are not bound by any such agreement.

We recognise that some of those who are here by virtue of the hereditary principle continue to make a significant contribution to the work of this House and to government. This Bill does not threaten their position in any way. We also believe that passing the Bill will do little good in terms of limiting the size of the House if the system of prime ministerial and party leader appointments continues in the way that it has done in recent years.

We were promised a further phase of reform following that of 1999—the year I joined this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, the Labour Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill 2010 promised to end the practice of holding by-elections to keep up the numbers of hereditary Peers. But that provision was, sadly, removed during the so-called wash-up period immediately prior to the 2010 general election. The ending of such wash-up periods when elections are called outside a fixed-term cycle was, in my view, a good reason for passing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

The history of debates in this House about the future of by-elections for hereditary Peers has not been a happy one. Let us put an end to them now by passing this Bill and bringing an end to a process which does no credit to this House, to Parliament generally or to British democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I have studiously resisted the temptation to take part in debates about reform of this House for all the 30 years I have sat here. My noble friend Lord Robathan commented on age. Despite having been here 30 years, I think, looking around the Chamber, I am possibly the youngest speaker in the debate—the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, might be slightly younger—and possibly even the youngest person in the House today, so maybe my 30 years have been wasted, I do not know. I am driven to break my Trappist vow of silence because I am completely fascinated to know what motivates the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to drag this hoary old potato out of the depths of the mud and give it another trip around the park.

Clearly, as your Lordships have been discussing, the primary concern relating to the House of Lords today—as the noble Lord the Lord Speaker, who has just left the Woolsack, so helpfully reminded us earlier this week—is numbers. The measure before us makes no meaningful impact on numbers. If the argument is that the by-elections were originally intended, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, quite rightly said, as a temporary measure, that no one at the time imagined they would continue for 17 years and therefore it is time to get rid of them, that is a reasonable point, but not in isolation.

The 1999 Act in its entirety was only a temporary measure—the first part of a two-stage reform. But as your Lordships all know better than most, that second stage has never come because the Executive and the legislature cannot agree a solution that does not disadvantage either of them. So if you are one of those who has come to the conclusion that continuing election of replacement hereditary Peers has passed a time when it is valid, if it ever was—some obviously do not think it was—then it is difficult too not to conclude that the entire 1999 Act is in need of replacement also. That is the position I have reached. The agreement reached in 1999 was not, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, suggested, binding on Parliament. Of course you cannot bind Parliament, but it was an agreement between people representing two of the main parties in Parliament. As such, for what it is worth, that agreement still stands. But as I said, I have reached the conclusion that the entire 1999 Act needs complete change.

There are two phrases I hear repeatedly in this House. The first is that the National Health Service is the envy of the world and the second is that the House of Lords is doing an absolutely marvellous job. I have to tell your Lordships that while the National Health Service may well have been the envy of the world, I do not hear that envy expressed on my travels as often as it used to be. As a Member of this wonderful House—it is a wonderful House—for 30 years, and a student of it at my father’s knee since I was old enough to learn and understand, I have come to the reluctant but growing conclusion that we do not really do our job as well as we used to either.

Our scrutiny of legislation is noticeably less effective than it used to be—as, indeed, are the Bills we are forced to scrutinise. That is in part because of the excessive use of Grand Committees, which discourages noble Lords without direct interest in a particular Bill from participating either in Grand Committee or when the Bill returns to the Floor of the House, where their participation is so often an important part of the process. The amount of time we spend each Session revisiting issues that were legislated upon the year before is, of course, primarily evidence of the Government’s legislative incompetence, but I am afraid it is also evidence of our failure to scrutinise as effectively as we used to.

Our set-piece debates on the great issues of the day used to attract worldwide attention. Believe it or not, I have at home an old scrapbook full of press reports of debates in which I made rather indifferent contributions when I was just a lad, if your Lordships can imagine such a thing. I even have one that was reported in the New York Times. That would not happen today. Our debates now seem increasingly to be a string of overlong, repetitive and unrelated statements, bearing precious little relevance to the preceding speeches, thus not constituting a true debate at all. Too often they bring little new insight to the subject being debated, and are consequently rarely reported, and ignored by commentators and Governments alike—sad, but true. While the hereditary peerage has and had many faults, by its nature it was able to bring a degree of independence to debates that is lacking in a House increasingly dominated by a professional, and thus often self-interested, political class in one form or another.

One of the unintended consequences of the 1999 Act was that, while the standing of the political class as a whole has deteriorated in the public esteem, the hereditary peerage, oddly enough, is enjoying an unexpected revival in its reputational fortunes, which I, for one, am enjoying—and do not deserve, probably. We may not have been right, and we may often have been wrong. We may not have been particularly liked—I do not think we were particularly disliked—but it was and is widely assumed that we tell the truth, whereas today’s political establishment is simply not trusted. One of the most unpleasant features of the recent referendum debate was the patent rubbish spouted on both sides.

So the size of this House is a problem that the Bill does not address. It is not the rate at which Members leave this House that is the problem, but rather the manner in which they arrive. Accelerating by a few years the departure of a few hereditary Peers who are bound to leave at some point no more solves the problem than does the option of retirement, sensible though that is for reasons of humanity. If your Lordships find the concept of hereditary legislators so democratically offensive, as the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Rennard, and one or two others clearly do, then is the flooding of the Liberal Democrat Benches since the end of the coalition Government and the arrival of 16 new colleagues at the whim of an outgoing Prime Minister any less democratically offensive? Though we all understand the reasons for both, none of that can be acceptable in the 21st century. Yet, the Liberal party and the rest of the House appear to have accepted it.

I am happy to declare an interest here; I am a beneficiary of Stanley Baldwin’s Resignation Honours, but that was 80 years and three generations ago. It may well have worked then—obviously I think it did—but the world has changed since 1937.

The Life Peerages Act 1958 breathed new air into this House. It worked in part because no amount of patronage could swamp the sheer number of hereditary Peers, which thus acted as a deterrent to any Prime Minister who attempted to do so. With the departure of 90% of hereditary Peers, the Life Peerage Act itself, or more specifically the untrammelled power of appointment it contains, became the problem because it constitutes power without responsibility or accountability.

To provide a revising Chamber suitable for today—as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, pleaded for and with whom I agree—to work in the new Palace to which those whom the grim reaper has not removed will return in 2028, this House needs root-and-branch reform. What manner that reform may take will take interminable debates in this House for many days, weeks and years to come, but not, I hope, today.

My concern is that by tinkering at the edges, slowly removing, at God’s pace, the 10% of the membership of this House that, by the way, has collectively the best record of participation whichever way you like to measure it, the Bill makes any major reform much less likely. Although I am extremely happy to acknowledge the very good intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I am afraid that the Bill is nothing more than an enabling Bill, by which I mean it enables the Executive, the other place and the political establishment the luxury of not having to give serious thought to Lords reform for yet another Session, the second of this Parliament. That may be very comfortable for some Members of this House, including me, but it is not in the interests of the body politic or the British people. For that reason, and that reason alone, I cannot support the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I assure my noble friend that after every debate in this House that I take part in I go back to whichever department I am speaking for and ensure that all the points that have been made are taken in. I will certainly do that today.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I apologise very much for interrupting my noble friend again; she is doing a splendid job. When she passes on the message about your Lordships’ concern about the quantity of new Members of this House, could she at the same time pass on our concerns about their quality?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I think my noble friend has already done that because his remarks will be in Hansard. I am sure they will take note.