House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly. While I can understand the logic behind the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I believe that HOLAC, for which I have the greatest respect, is not totally infallible. I examined the issue of my noble friend Lord Cruddas’s rejection by the committee, and to summarise the matter, he was involved in a sting with Sunday Times journalists. He was then cleared by the Electoral Commission of any wrongdoing, sued the Sunday Times in a court and was given extensive damages. He is a respectable businessman, so I feel that, in that case, the Prime Minister was right to overrule HOLAC. There should be some sort of appeal mechanism in that case.

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, before this debate concludes, I think this House owes a great debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who has confirmed for the Committee now what I feared in the past: that it is HOLAC’s duty to advise the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s duty to advise the King, and the King’s job to appoint. That is as it should be. What he does confirm, however, is that the sole power of appointment to the Second Chamber, from the passage of this Bill onwards, now rests in the hands of the Prime Minister, who has the majority in the House of Commons. If that is not an unbalanced and damaged constitution, I do not know what is.

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly, mainly because I endorse the words of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and agree with virtually everything he said. I do not think it is appropriate for these amendments to be in this Bill for two reasons. First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, about scope. This is in essence a one-clause Bill with a very specific purpose. Secondly, the amendments—though I agree with a number of them—are, in essence, disparate and discrete, so it is not appropriate to embody them in a Bill of this sort. They need to be drawn together. If there is going to be change, it needs to be in a clear, coherent Bill that addresses the concerns that we have heard today.

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[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, will she join me in congratulating the Government Chief Whip on the brilliant management of business in the House this afternoon, whereby there is virtually nobody sitting on the Government Benches? Apart from the wonderful noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, representing the dinosaurs, I do not think a single Government Back-Bencher has spoken in support of the Government’s Bill today. They have now even brought in Ministers to sit behind the Front Bench so that everybody watching on screen thinks that the Government are being supported. This is not the sort of management of business that we expect to see in your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, what is so unfortunate is that I was about to welcome and celebrate the tone of the debate that we had just had. So I am going to move on with the tone of the debate and celebrate the contributions that noble Lords have made, which have been—in overwhelming number— thoughtful and considered. I am grateful for that. I think all noble Lords—as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, highlighted—want the same thing for this House: colleagues who meet the highest standards of public service, who are dedicated to our country and who want to ensure that our legislation is fit for purpose.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, allow HOLAC to veto the Prime Minister’s and party leaders’ nominations to the House of Lords. The amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, also specifies HOLAC’s composition and purpose in statute. The Government are grateful for the discussion on these amendments today. We committed in our manifesto to reform the appointments process, but we cannot, unfortunately, accept these amendments, which fundamentally alter the roles and responsibilities in the appointments system.

Constitutionally, it is on the advice of the Prime Minister that the sovereign appoints new Peers, but it is not just the Prime Minister who makes these nominations. The Prime Minister, by convention, invites nominations from other political parties. After all, as was pointed out earlier in Committee, I was appointed by the former Prime Minister Truss. It is the responsibility of party leaders to consider who is best placed to represent their party in the House of Lords. This is an important principle. The Prime Minister and other party leaders are democratically elected and accountable to Parliament, and ultimately to the electorate, for the political nominations they make to the House of Lords.

The House of Lords Appointments Commission vets all nominations for life peerages to ensure the highest standards of propriety in this House. The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, would seek to make HOLAC’s advice defunct. If HOLAC recommended a nominee, the Prime Minister would be unable to proceed with their appointment. I hope it is obvious to your Lordships’ House why we cannot accept this, not least given the conversation we had earlier about People’s Peers. HOLAC’s proprietary advice is important to the Prime Minister as he discharges his duty to advise the sovereign on life peerages, and he of course considers it carefully. The Government are very grateful for the work that HOLAC, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, does to provide this advice.

This advice, however, forms part of a process that also ensures democratic accountability in the appointment process. Party leaders must accept responsibility for their appointment. We cannot and should not expect HOLAC to take on that responsibility. Handing HOLAC, an unelected body, the role of recommending new life peerages directly to the sovereign, or giving them the power to veto the Prime Minister’s recommendations, as in the amendment put forward today, would undermine that accountability.

The Government believe that nominating parties should be properly held to account for their nominations to the House of Lords. As my noble friend the Leader of the House set out on the first day of Committee, we have already taken a straightforward but important step to introduce a requirement on all nominating parties to provide public citations that clearly set out why individuals were nominated. I was pleased to see the first set of citations published on GOV.UK following the recent peerage list in December of last year.

The amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, seeks to introduce a new oath for new Peers and requires HOLAC to be satisfied that new Peers will participate. This is a thoughtful suggestion, but, as a reminder, new Peers already sign our Code of Conduct when they take their seat. As we have said during the passage of the Bill, we are working on developing a participation requirement to ensure that we become a more active Chamber. It matters less what Peers say they will do than what they actually do when they come here. I am, however, grateful to noble Lords for their suggestions on how this could work and ways to take it forward.

More widely, the Prime Minister has made clear that he is committed to restoring trust in Parliament and takes the advice of all ethics bodies seriously. The Government are committed to keeping our ethics bodies under review and, where necessary, delivering reforms to ensure the highest standards in public life. Indeed, the Government have already demonstrated their willingness to strengthen the independent protections provided by the standards landscape. The Prime Minister has, for example, significantly strengthened the remit of the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, ensuring they have the ability to initiate investigations into ministerial standards without requiring the Prime Minister’s consent. However, as I have made clear, the amendments proposed today would undermine the manifesto commitment to look at the current system and the democratic lines of accountability that currently exist in the appointments process.

I now turn to the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, which would give HOLAC the power to recommend 20 individuals to the sovereign for non-party political life peerages over the next five years. The Cross-Benchers bring expertise and diverse perspectives to the House, which I welcome, and I thoroughly enjoy working with many of them. They make valuable contributions. Retirements and other departures mean that new Peers will always need to be appointed to ensure that the Lords has appropriate expertise, and I acknowledge that the Bill will have a particular impact on the number of Cross-Benchers. As my noble friend the Leader of the House said to the Committee last week, she has committed to discuss this with the relevant parties.

As it stands, new Peers can be appointed to the Cross Benches through nominations by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. HOLAC runs an open-application assessment process to identify and select new Cross-Bench Peers, and the Prime Minister passes HOLAC’s nominations to the sovereign. Many excellent Peers have come to your Lordships’ House this way. The number of Peers that HOLAC is able to nominate is decided by the Prime Minister, and in doing so he of course takes into account the political balance of your Lordships’ House. Prime Ministers can also recommend a limited number of additional Cross-Bench appointments over the course of the Parliament for those with a record of public service. As with all new Peers, they are subject to propriety vetting by HOLAC.

I note that the noble Lord’s amendment allows HOLAC, rather than the Prime Minister, the role of recommending 20 life Peers to the sovereign. As I addressed earlier, constitutionally it is for the Prime Minister, as principal adviser to the sovereign, to recommend new life Peers. I appreciate that the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the Cross-Benchers remain a significant presence in your Lordships’ House. To give HOLAC, an unelected body, the role of providing advice to the sovereign, even in this limited way, would, however, be a clear break from our constitutional arrangements—one that would require careful thought, as today’s debate has demonstrated, and one that the Government do not support or think necessary.

As we have repeatedly stated, the Government committed in their manifesto to reform the process of appointments to this place, to ensure the quality of new appointments and to improve the representative balance of the second Chamber so that it better reflects the country that it serves. We have heard—and I am sure we will continue to hear—interesting proposals from across the House, and we welcome the discussion on appointments. However, it is right that we take time to properly consider how to take forward our manifesto commitment to reform in this area, as part of the wider standards landscape, in a way that reflects the importance of those lines of democratic accountability. It is also not a debate for this Bill. As has been stated, this is a focused Bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about an immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit and vote in your Lordships’ House. It is not the vehicle to consider all reforms to the House of Lords. I therefore respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.