House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, can I just correct her on regional balance? So far as I am aware, at present we have only one hereditary Peer in the House from Yorkshire. I think the north of England is very underrepresented and there has been, I regret to say, with the hereditary peerage, a tendency for young generations to move to the Home Counties over the years and, of course, to go to school in the Home Counties as well. So the regional representation of the hereditaries is not particularly good.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I understand why noble Lords opposite would like to terminate debate, but I think there is a case for going a little bit further. Since noble Lords have allowed themselves some personal reflections, perhaps I can first add one of my own, which is that, when I was introduced to this House, one of my supporters was a Cross-Bench hereditary Peer. I will not mention his name, because I have not told him in advance that I am going to make these remarks. It all went back to the fact that, more than 40 years ago, I used to play bridge with his mother, and when he made his maiden speech shortly after his 21st birthday, I sat with his mother in the Peeresses’ Gallery and listened to him. We remained in touch and so, when I was being introduced, I thought that it was time for some payback. He willingly agreed, adding that he had never in the whole of his time in the House been asked to sponsor anybody at their introduction, so he was very happy to do so.

He has served throughout that time because he survived the Blair cull. He has been committed to the House and he has worked hard. What so many people find unfair—as I said, I have not discussed these remarks with him at all—is that he is to be expelled not because of lack of merit, not because of lack of commitment, not because of lack of expertise, but simply because of the way in which he entered the House. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, there seems to be an inherent unfairness in that.

I turn to the amendment, which I support. I emphasise that this amendment is not about the hereditary principle. It is about the principle of expulsion. We seem to be taking it for granted that an act of expulsion is sort of okay, whereas, in fact, it is almost entirely without precedent. There is the baleful precedent of Pride’s Purge, and since then the only example of the expulsion of people as a class from Parliament was what happened in 1999. To take that as a precedent so that it becomes, if you like, a normal thing for groups to be expelled from one House of Parliament or another, but more likely from this House, according to—I will not say the whims, but perhaps the vagaries of what might appear in manifestos is a very bad principle indeed. It does not affect only the hereditary Peers; it affects all of us because one can divide and one can create those criteria for expulsion according to, really, anything that fits, and can achieve political and other objectives in doing so.

When we say, “A whole group of us is to be expelled”, we appear to have a precedent for it in 1999, I grant you that, but it is not a good precedent. It is not a precedent that should be repeated. The proposal made by my noble friend Lady Mobarik avoids that and puts that danger at some distance from us. So I think that there are broader reasons for accepting it than simply our admiration of and friendship with the individuals involved in this case. There are broader reasons of principle for accepting it and I urge the Front Bench to consider them on constitutional grounds.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Mobarik’s amendment. It is consistent with the Government’s manifesto pledge, in that it accepts the principle of removing the hereditary Peers. I am not sympathetic to that change and I do not go along with the assumptions on which it is proposed. None the less, I accept that the Government have given their manifesto pledge and they have the right to make this change.

That, however, does not preclude the arrangement proposed by my noble friend. If anything, it should open the way for it. Such a major change in the legislature of this country is a matter of constitutional importance, as is the separation of powers and how we are governed. In these matters, an evolutionary approach is best. This amendment opens the way for retaining the expertise of some of the most experienced, knowledgeable and dedicated Peers.

British political history may have been dramatic during its other periods of constitutional change. None the less, the arrangements—whether extending the franchise in the 19th century, Catholic emancipation, or Irish home rule and then the treaty with Ireland—were evolutionary. They incorporated something of what went before by allowing for a gradual evolution, not a violent upheaval.

Similarly, reform of this House has been gradual and saved something of what went before. This brought Britain political stability, and brought stability to our democracy, unlike in the cases of other friends and neighbours, such as France, which is a unitary power like Britain but did not necessarily follow the evolutionary approach. We see reports that this continues, even to the present day.

This Bill is a Labour Party measure. I have nothing but admiration for the party opposite, which emerged as a main party of government in the early 20th century. It accepted the constitutional conventions and it helped democracy in this country to evolve. It was also helped by the restraint of the Conservative leadership, which refused, as one interwar Prime Minister put it, to “fire the first shot”. This was not because of a desire to appease politically but as the means of enabling Britain’s democracy to evolve gradually—and evolve it did.

Labour won power, first in 1924, again in 1929 and then, dramatically, in 1945. It was given a fair crack of the whip to get on with the manifesto pledge and be judged at the end of the Parliament on the whole package of how well it did in power. Similarly, with this House, there has been an evolutionary, not political, change. There is a settled constitutional way of proceeding, consistent with the manifesto pledge. I hope that the Government will accept this amendment—that they will accept the established and successful way of incorporating something that has gone before. I hope that they will, in this way, signify their respect for the consensual approach to constitutional change, and that they will not fire the first shot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I very largely agree with the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. My Amendment 101A is slightly more ambitious—perhaps too ambitious for the taste of your Lordships this evening. We have debated this Bill for four full days now. I do not wish to test the patience of noble Lords much further, but I do think we are missing an opportunity here.

I rather share the view that, as far as the Government are concerned, this will be it in relation to this House. I do not see them moving to any further stage, certainly not in this Parliament. All the evidence, for instance, on an age restriction in this House suggests that it is slightly eclipsed by the average age of the most recent appointments made by the Government to this House.

However, it is worth pausing to consider that, since two fundamental issues have arisen with implications for the constitution—those being devolution and Brexit—we have had no deep thought as to how we now wish this country to be governed. In fact, the last royal commission, which is what my amendment calls for, was instigated in 1969: Lord Crowther started it, and it was finished by Lord Kilbrandon in 1973. It was a contentious commission. Two people resiled from signing it, and people did not agree on it, but at least there was a debate about how we wished this country to be governed.

We have seen a lot of things happen without there being any thorough or clear thought as to whether they are the sort of things that we want to happen. We have seen an expansion in the Welsh Parliament; just recently, they have extended the number of Members. We have seen debates within the Scottish Parliament as to whether you can be a Member of Parliament as well as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. We have had debates about there being no English Parliament when all the component parts of the United Kingdom now have their own Assemblies.

We have heard how in Northern Ireland there has been paralysis over recent years. Do we want to look again at the d’Hondt process? Do we want to look again at how we select the First Minister in Northern Ireland? Do we want to look again at how political parties can self-designate in Northern Ireland?

We have seen recently moves to reorganise local government in England without much debate—a move to unitaries, getting rid of a lot of our district authorities. I personally support that in most cases, but we have had no consideration as to what that means for the representation of the voters in being represented properly.

In the House of Lords itself, in the last Parliament—my noble friend Lord Forsyth was very quick on this the whole time—we had Ministers in this Parliament who were unpaid. I would suggest that, in a democracy, when we have a bicameral system of legislation, to have unpaid Ministers performing the roles of Ministers in the other House is absolutely unacceptable. I very much hope that the Treasury Bench will confirm that there are no Ministers currently doing this unpaid. Incidentally, as we have heard, the majority of Ministers who were doing it unpaid when we on this side of the House were in Government were actually, yes, hereditary Peers.

When I first came to this House, which was not very long ago, the Lord Speaker told me that he thought the difference between the other place and this place was that in the other place you get up and you tell people, and in this place you get up and you ask people. In that spirit, I would ask whether your Lordships agree that what we are doing with this Bill is just spraying a bit of body paint on to a rotting carcass. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace: I think the British public are in a febrile state and do not feel that they are being properly represented. We need to do something about that as a matter of urgency, and what better way than to have a root and branch royal commission to look at how this country is governed and should be governed, how the balance of power is distributed around the country, and whether we need a bicameral system of government going forward?

If we do not need that, so be it; we will have to have some other check on the Executive. If we do, and I suspect that most of your Lordships would think that we do, then we need to decide what the powers of that second body—us, your Lordships’ House, whatever we want to call it—need to be.

I personally believe—I have changed my mind on this—that what we are seeing with this Bill is a move towards a completely different second Chamber. I would not be at all surprised if, in the next decade-plus, we do have an elected senate. Maybe that is a good thing; I do not know if it is a good thing or not. What I do know is that we need to have the debate, on all the issues that I have mentioned. I do not believe that this Bill should become an Act until we have thoroughly thought through the implications of what we are doing.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. This short debate has ranged very widely, and I would like to bring it back to something a little narrower. Before I do so, I will say—as I said at an earlier stage in Committee—that I agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham: we are headed in the direction of a democratically elected upper Chamber. Quite frankly, a House that is wholly appointed in the 21st century, in a democracy, is a ridiculous thing; it has no legitimacy. This is where we will have to go. I do not say that because I am avid for change but because it is an inevitable and logical consequence of the process that we are engaged in today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As I said, the Leader of the House and others have acknowledged that what we did in 1999 was remove the hereditary principle. As my noble friend Lord Grocott has said on a number of occasions, that was not simply a mechanism to ensure transition; it was about saying to the Labour Government, “You won’t get your business through if you don’t keep these hereditaries here”. That was the reality, as my noble friend made clear in previous debates.

We have had over 25 years since the removal of the hereditary principle while maintaining 92. The Opposition had the opportunity on many occasions to support my noble friend so that those hereditary Peers could have stayed, but no: we ended up electing further hereditary Peers who were much younger and had no record of experience—as the noble Lord suggested—prior to their election by a very small number of people. The reality is that we are trying to defend the indefensible. We have a clear commitment in our manifesto.

By the way, there was no legislative scrutiny—I will come on to other commitments in our manifesto—but it is disingenuous of noble Lords to say that somehow they do not believe what we are saying. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I assure noble Lords that we will commit to that.

Amendment 96 from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, would place a duty on the Government within 12 months of the Bill coming into force to produce a report dealing with its effects, including on devolved Governments, the Commonwealth, members of the Council of Europe and the rest of the world. As I have said, the impact of the Bill is very clear and I submit that, contrary to our propensity to talk about ourselves, the implications of the Bill are unlikely to be felt substantively throughout the international community.

I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—I have said this many times before—that the Government are committed to reforming the House of Lords, as set out in our manifesto. As my noble friend the Leader of the House has said in previous debates, the Government are keen to engage on how best to implement the other manifesto commitments by building consensus and understanding the needs of this House. She will come forward with proposals for doing this in a structured way.

Noble Lords are also aware of our longer-term commitment to consult the public on an alternative second Chamber. In light of this comment, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Oh no!

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am not going to be shouted down. I did not hear the Minister specifically address Amendment 101 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. It effectively offers the Front Bench a choice either to force this through simply on weight of numbers or for a limited period of six months to delay the implementation of the Bill for the purpose of a constitutional convention, with a view to achieving as much consensus as possible. Does the Minister wish to comment before he concludes his speech?

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

104: Clause 4, page 2, line 16, leave out from “force” to end of line 19 and insert “on the day after the Secretary of State has—
(a) issued a document for public consultation containing proposals for ensuring the membership of the House of Lords is more representative of the regions and nations, and(b) published a draft Bill giving effect to those changes.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment makes the commencement of the Bill subject to the prior issuance of a consultation document and draft legislation on the representation of the regions and nations in the House of Lords. It makes subsection (4) otiose.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, we come now to a group of amendments which deal with second-stage reform. I feel it incumbent on me, therefore, to start by tackling directly the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in the last group where he suggested— I hope I am not misrepresenting him—that noble Lords on this side of the House who advocated for further reform beyond this Bill were either acting in bad faith or at least inconsistently in that they had not been calling for that reform before today.

I think that charge is easily understood. I can entirely understand why the noble Lord might reach that view, and it needs to be answered before we go ahead. The only answer I can offer is to some extent a repeat of remarks I made on an earlier day in Committee that, when you change one part of a complicated machine, other parts of it also change and need to be re-evaluated. As I have said perhaps twice, to turn this House into an entirely appointed House makes it ridiculous in the 21st century in a democracy.

Therefore, one is forced to think by this measure—there is nothing wrong with it—about what the future might be, and we may reach different views. However, it does not mean to say that because we have not articulated them before we are behaving inconsistently or in bad faith. I hope that gives some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that we are taking these issues very seriously.

I shall speak only briefly to my own amendment and allow other noble Lords to speak to their amendments in this group. My own is in some ways the simplest. It looks forward to what we refer to as second-stage reform but really there are three stages of reform in the programme indicated by the Lord Privy Seal: this Bill; the other measures in the Labour Party manifesto which I regard as being under the heading “immediate” but she believes should follow, presumably, reasonably soon; and then the further commitment, which is clearly separate in time in the manifesto, to consult on altering the House of Lords so as to give more representation to the regions and nations.

My amendment simply says that the Bill should proceed only when the Government have issued that consultation document. They are committed to consultation and, presumably, the consultation begins formally with a consultation document that would contain options and questions and so forth—it is not necessarily a firm commitment—together with a draft Bill, which might have alternative sections in it reflecting that consultation document. It would show earnest on the part of the Front Bench that there really is going to be change, that the rest of their manifesto is not a hollow shell and that we are not simply going to be left, as so many of us suspect and fear, with the reform in this Bill and then nothing else to follow.

This is opening a door for the Front Bench to say, “Yes, we are serious about our manifesto, and we believe that these documents should be issued and be there for public scrutiny. The process will start—not conclude—before the Bill commences”. This is a very modest ask of the Government and I hope that the Lord Privy Seal would find herself able to show her earnest by agreeing to it. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, I must inform the Committee that if Amendment 104 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 105 to 110 by reason of pre-emption.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a theme we have discussed which regularly goes beyond hereditary Peers. I understand the point the noble Lord has made. The Committee has been useful. I would not have expected the debate to range so widely, given that it was quite clear in the manifesto that there were three stages here—the first being immediate reform to hereditary Peers; the next being to talk about participation, retirement, HOLAC and things such as the citations that we now have for people, which have already been put into place without needing any legislation. We will see more issues coming forward on the kind of things that we can do. Though it was unexpected, the scope of the amendments has been rather wide.

It has been useful—I think the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, would agree if he was listening—if unexpected, because I had not realised quite the degree of interest and concern from noble Lords, and support for bringing forward the other issues on participation and retirement. I think that helps us move things forward. It was unexpected and at times frustrating but it has been very helpful. I am grateful to noble Lords for that.

However, these amendments go further than I would be willing to accept because they all make the progress of the Bill towards Royal Assent conditional on certain actions being taken. That would be a rather unusual step for this House to take. The objection is not that further reforms should not happen—noble Lords will know from conversations I have had with them that I am committed to that, and our manifesto committed to it. There was support from around the House, which had not been forthcoming before, so I was very encouraged by that. But it should not be conditional on the Bill.

The reason why this part came forward—I feel as if I am repeating myself, but it has happened before and it will happen again, and I am not the only one—is the principle established over 25 years ago on hereditary Peers. We signalled this part of legislation several times beforehand—I will repeat myself—but we offered support to get my noble friend Lord Grocott’s Bill through; that was rejected and we said this would happen, and here we are now.

I had not realised how much support there was around the House for the other issues, so we can look at that and, I hope, bring things back some time soon. So this is the immediate reform and it can happen separately, prior to other reform.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, made proposals for a draft Bill along the lines of the Wakeham commission’s findings. I had not heard him speak so often or so eloquently on Lords reforms before this Bill, so I am grateful to him for doing so. The Wakeman commission was in 2002. That does not mean that some of those proposals are not still relevant and cannot be considered, but it was a long time ago and things change, as he will know. But I am grateful to him for his interest in that, which I had not appreciated before this Bill. I look forward to working with him and others on that as we go forward.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I think his memory is slightly remiss on this one. It was, in fact, in November that the Bill got Royal Assent, and it happened so quickly then—I think this was the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, made earlier—because we had Royal Assent towards the end of the Session.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, had concerns about this. When he raised this point previously it was almost as if—to coin a famous Tony Blair phrase from a Labour Party conference some years ago—Members heard the sound of pennies dropping. I got the impression that many noble Lords thought that it would be preferable if this House came to an arrangement or to a broad consensus on participation and retirement rather than having legislation on it. I am happy about either. I would like to find a way forward to get some consensus, if that is possible. It may be that legislation has to follow that, or that there will be legislation if there is no consensus. As I say, this is how I would have preferred to deal with this issue had we been in government sooner, but as Leader of the Opposition I made it clear that it was my view that, if the House can come to a consensus and arrangement on how we do things—I hope to be able to talk more about the process—then I would be happy to do so. As I say, I am greatly encouraged, even by noble Lords who have never previously spoken on or shown any interest in Lords reform, that there is a different mood now, and I think Members want to look at this issue.

I want to correct the noble Lord, Lord Newby: the proposals in the Labour Party manifesto were not for an elected second Chamber. It was not so specific. It talked about “alternative” arrangements for a second Chamber, and that would be for consultation. I know some noble Lords from across the House would prefer an elected Chamber, while others prefer other arrangements.

On my own view, I must admit that I am nervous. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has said that he thought we should challenge the House of Commons more, and that greater democracy in this Chamber would make us challenge the House of Commons more. I still think of the House of Commons as the primary, elected Chamber. There is a different role for your Lordships’ House, which brings me to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, raised, in a rare moment of agreement between us: we have to look at the function of a second Chamber before we move forward too quickly on the arrangements for a fully reformed second Chamber.

There is a debate to be had about that, which is why our manifesto talks about engaging and consulting, including with the public, to do so. It is right to give that careful consideration. We have a proposal before us. I do not think that the commencement of the Bill should be conditional on any of the measures before us, so I ask that noble Lords do not press their amendments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in this short debate. All of them were excellent, but I will comment in particular on the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, which I found very interesting and hopeful, in many ways. He is right that many of the measures in the Labour Party manifesto, which many of us are asking to see brought forward, at the very least for debate, would be better dealt with in and through your Lordships’ House than by means of legislation. Indeed, that would make it easier for the Front Bench to bring them forward in a prompt and timely manner. He also opened the door—as did my noble friend Lord True, when he spoke earlier in Committee—to discussions with the Lord Privy Seal about how to take these things forward. The great difficulty we have had so far is that there has been no substantive response to that, but I found what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said interesting.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord says that there has never been a substantive response. I can be clear that I have always said almost exactly the same words as I have said today, or paraphrased them: I have always thought that the best way is to seek consensus in this House. At the conclusion of this Bill, I would like to reach consensus in this House on other issues that we have been discussing in the manifesto, and I look forward to bringing in some proposals for how we might achieve that. It is up to the House whether it wishes to accept those or not.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Nothing in what the noble Baroness just said contradicted what I said. There has been no substantive response. The noble Baroness might want to proceed by consensus. That is a method of proceeding. I refer to the substance, and there has been no substantive response, despite the fact that it has been perfectly open to the Front Bench to bring forward substantive proposals, at least for discussion, so far.

There is no need for my Amendment 104—again, this relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said—to be embedded in legislation. The noble Baroness, from her years in opposition, complained that it is designed to hold up implementation of the Bill. She knows perfectly well that, to a degree, it is a contrivance to attach an amendment to a commencement clause in order to allow for a debate, but the plain words of my amendment, which are largely taken word for word from the Labour Party manifesto and include not a commitment to a democratic House but to exactly what it says in that manifesto, could be achieved by the simple expedient of the Government bringing forward exactly the consultation document they promised and exactly the draft Bill that needs to go with it, exactly as it stands in their manifesto, at a time of their choosing but in the near future, as an earnest of what they are doing so that we can see the direction in which they are going. Obviously, the need for legislation or any amendment to this Bill would then fall away, because the Government would have done what the amendment calls for.

We are to some extent going round in circles. We want to hear the Government’s programme. There is no substance to the Government’s programme. I am glad that we have flushed out that there is no substance to it. With that, all I can do is beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 104 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, the hour is late, so I simply want to say this: I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will take on board the very wise advice given by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham in speaking to his amendment. He is vastly experienced, having been Leader in the other place. I think all of us, with the possible exception of the odd Conservative Whip, have much enjoyed the way in which he takes a sometimes very independent and always well-considered view of matters before the House. Notwithstanding the earlier debate, I would like to be on record as very firmly in support of what he suggested. I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader will treat that seriously in the interests of the House as a whole.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, other amendments in this group have a tendency to delay the date of implementation of the Bill. My Amendment 107A is neutral on that. It would remove the words relating to the end of the Session from the Bill and instead would make the implementation of the Bill dependent on a statutory instrument to be moved by the Government. To make it all the easier for the Government to accept it, I have ensured that it would be through the negative procedure, so it would be the easiest thing in the world for the Government to do. That flexibility might be of advantage to the Government; indeed, if I were them, I would seize this amendment with open hands and adopt it as my own.

Noble Lords who are hereditary Peers may think that it introduces an element of capriciousness about their fate and that they would therefore be uncertain about when they would come to the end of their term. But there is already a large degree of capriciousness and uncertainty, because the end of the Session is, of course, not a fixed date: it will be decided, in effect, by the Prime Minister, and I am sure he will decide it according to a broad range of considerations. The fate of Members of your Lordships’ House is probably quite low on that list. The Session could end at any time. Noble Lords who feel that they would somehow be losing control of events by handing this power to the Government just need to remember that the end of the Session is equally in the Government’s power. But this would give the Government a little more flexibility and allow them to have more discussions, perhaps after the Bill has passed, about an appropriate time for implementing it, so as to be able to carry noble Lords with them a little more.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I spoke in November and December, and again in this Committee, about the necessity of avoiding a cliff edge when we were thinking about retirement ages. I thought it would be interesting to inform the Committee of the nature of the cliff edge for the Cross Bench and the necessity I therefore feel for considering very carefully the transitional arrangements, which this series of amendments really goes to.

In a pure sense, we would lose 18.5% of our membership—and, therefore, of the people who put in the hours in this House—upon the coming into force of this Bill. If you adjust that by taking out the people who come less than 10% of the time—the people who really are inactive—that rises to 22.5%. Without a transitional arrangement, the Bill represents quite a difficulty for the Cross Bench in trying to deliver the services we try to deliver to this House.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, my first point in response to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is that the Bill will pass—the noble Lord does not need to worry about that. Secondly, simple constitutional changes can have very serious consequences. We have only to think about a simple change that my noble friend Lord Cameron introduced, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which created a disaster.

I think it would be helpful to the Committee if the noble Lord, Lord Newby, could tell us what he thinks the role of the House of Lords is now, and what he thinks it will be in the future. My noble friend Lord Blencathra touched on that. The noble Baroness said that there was mistrust from the public, and I think that arises largely from extremely misleading reporting in the media, which little is done to counter. I would ask the same question about the role of the House of Lords of the Leader of the House, but I expect she would be quite cautious, especially as regards the future. I remind the House that I intend to retire in the spring, so I am fairly neutral.

Many noble Lords—and others inside and outside the House—fall into the trap of proposing to alter the composition of the House of Lords without first considering its role, both now and in the future. I thought that the Labour Government had already studied this matter carefully by means of the Wakeham commission, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and other noble Lords referred. There is a solution very carefully worked out by my noble friend Lord Wakeham and his commission.

I have always believed that the role of the House of Lords is to revise legislation—and I mean revise, not just scrutinise. In the last Parliament, the House revised the Rwanda Bill: it did not merely scrutinise it. It should be an additional check on the Executive but not determine who the Prime Minister is or financial matters. Most importantly, it should be a source of expertise.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out that we have a difficulty in that we are hideously London-centric, but getting rid of the hereditary Peers who are chained to their castles and estates up and down the country will make the situation worse, and it is not clear to me how being elected, either in whole or in part, will make us any better at performing our role—a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Moore. Of course, it may make us much less willing to give way to the elected House. Many advocates of an elected House suggest that we would be more effective and legitimate if elected. I suggest that being elected can be a disadvantage. For instance, about two years ago, I was dealing with a problem with a high street bank debanking a business in the wider defence industry—noble Lords will recall that recently the Secretary of State for Defence was forcefully raising this issue in public. I needed to have a meeting with senior executives of the bank in circumstances where a Member of another place would be blanked by the bank; they would get nowhere. Why was I able to secure the meeting and then understand what the problem was? The answer is that the bank trusted me. It could be sure that I was not getting involved in order to burnish my local credentials, my media profile or anything else.

I have a question for noble Lords proposing a change to the role of the House or introducing an elected element. In their proposed reformed House, would it be intended that the Government of the day could still easily be defeated? If it was, surely the House would claim democratic credentials and be far more challenging to the House of Commons, as noble Lords have already pointed out. However, if the new House could only very rarely defeat the Government, then in the case of something such as the Rwanda Bill, surely the courts would step in to fill the vacuum.

Finally, can the Leader of the House say whether she agrees with my view of the current role of the House of Lords? I appreciate that she cannot comment about its future role, which is a much more difficult question. When in the 2010 Parliament the Conservative-led Government tried to reform the House, I gleefully went around my friends in the House of Commons saying that I was looking forward to being Senator Attlee of South Hampshire. They obviously got the message.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, when we debated the role of the House of Lords last November and on every occasion that we have debated the subject to which I have contributed, I have started by saying, as I say again today, that in a modern, 21st-century democracy there must be a case that the legislature should be elected. Although it puts me therefore to some extent at odds with friends of mine on different sides of the House, I have to say that I generally support, not necessarily every detail, the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Newby.

If that was all I had to say, I probably would not have bothered saying it, because I think the Lord Privy Seal must have grasped that there is support for the noble Lord’s amendment from different parts of the House, and all I would be doing is adding my name to that. However, I want to go a little further into the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and point out that it is really very clever and has a lot of lot in it that should attract noble Lords, because although it sets a clear destination, it is very non-specific about the details of how we should end up and what the new House of Lords would look like in its elected form. What he is doing in his amendment instead is putting in place a process.

I think we all know what a process looks like. It has the sort of things that we find in this amendment: steps that need to be taken, in a certain order, and dates by which those steps should ideally be taken. The Lord Privy Seal seems to have some difficulty with the word “process”. She used it in Committee last week, when we talked about various matters to do with the future of this House beyond this Bill. She said that we were in a process, but the Lord Privy Seal is not actually in a process. She may think she is, but she is not, because if she were she would be able to tell us the steps, the milestones and the target dates that we find in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby.

The only thing we know for certain about the process in which the Labour Government are engaged—the process that so is so important not only to this House, but to anyone who takes an interest in our constitutional balance—is that her door is always open. That is the process as far as the Labour Front Bench is concerned. There is no timetable, there are no milestones and there are no commitments as to what is going to happen, in what order or when. While it is perfectly legitimate for the Lord Privy Seal to say that she does not support the process proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, it now becomes almost impossible for her, given what she has said before, both to oppose the noble Lord and to fail to come forward with a process of her own—which is what so many noble Lords in this House would like to hear. Otherwise, she will show that she is not being wholly candid with us in the way that we would hope.

The essential point about Labour’s sense of direction is that it came forward in its manifesto with a package of measures and obtained a mandate for a package of measures. Some of those measures were to be taken at an early stage—the Lord Privy Seal and I have had this argument about the weight of the full stop, and I am not going to go through that now—and at least one was going to be taken later. It was going to be a consultation involving the democratic character of the House and the representation of the nations and regions and so on. Clearly, anyone reading the Labour Party manifesto would say that that was something to be done in the latter half of the Parliament. It also explains to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, why these issues arise in what appears to be a very narrow Bill: it is because that very narrow Bill sits in a context of a manifesto commitment and a mandate which is very much broader. It cannot be separated out; those threads cannot be pulled apart without having an effect on the rest of the fabric.

I will come to a close very quickly. If I tremble to find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I tremble even more to find myself in disagreement with my noble friend Lord Blencathra. While any new system or composition of the Lords is absolutely bound to require a crunching of gears as the two Chambers find a way of working together, the notion that this is impossible—that two democratic chambers cannot work together—is, as I have said before, simply belied. One can look round the rest of the democratic world, where it does work, with crunching of gears and not always ideally, and sometimes with surprises and unexpected turns of events—but of course it is possible to have two democratic chambers.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Blencathra that these matters are so weighty that there is a strong case for a referendum. I am rather more sympathetic to referendums than many people here and in the other place, and I find myself rather out on the extreme wing on this, but I certainly think there is a strong case for a referendum on the constitutional future of your Lordships’ House.

Coming back to my original point, I very much hope that the Lord Privy Seal will stop hiding behind her open door—if that is not too much of a mixed metaphor—and come out into the West Front corridor and tell us, if not in this Chamber today, if she does not like the process proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, what process she has to offer us.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 6, which seeks to open up the by-elections to registered voters—and, in fact, take it even further than that—to correct the wrong impression of by-elections held by many noble Lords who have never had first-hand experience of them.

The concept of by-elections to your Lordships’ House has been dismissed because of the singular nature of the candidates, but if the candidature is broadened, as envisaged by this amendment, the idea suddenly becomes much more attractive. To succeed in a by-election is no easy task; to have succeeded proves the candidate worthy to the selectorate involved in choosing him or, in the future, her.

The candidates must first a show real determination to sit in your Lordships’ House. Library research shows that, on average, an hereditary stands for election four times before being successful. As elections are held on average once a year, on the death or retirement of an existing Member, this typically means committing to a four-year election campaign to succeed. On average, there are 14 candidates for each vacancy and only one successful candidate each time—so one a year. There is no reason to suggest that the by-election process for registered voters, as imagined in my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 6, would be any less rigorous than the hereditary by-election process that has existed until very recently. First, there are hustings, where candidates hone their skills in political public speaking, followed by some very pointed and topical questions by members of the selectorate, who want only the brightest and the best to join them. Then, the voting process itself could hardly be more democratic, being a secret ballot conducted under proportional representation.

There is a lot to be said for scaling this up, not just for vacancies filled by registered voters, as in this amendment, but as a form of appointment to the whole House. Many amendments have called for a democratically elected House, but the reality is that this would mean the House of Commons agreeing to lose primacy, something to which it will never agree. I contend that that is simply never going to happen. On the other hand, we could have a democratically elected House if new Peers were elected by Members of this House. This is, after all, how political parties elect their leaders in the other place—at least partially. As ever, there is some devil in the detail, but it cannot be beyond the wit of sitting Peers to devise an election process based on the one that has worked so well, selecting only the very best hereditaries standing for election.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment. I say as a preliminary that I was somewhat horrified to hear, from his remarks, that there is an aversion, on the Cross Benches, to hairdressers. I have not heard that before. I cannot imagine why there would be an aversion to hairdressers among Members of your Lordships’ House, on the Cross Benches or elsewhere, and I hope that there will be opportunity before this short debate concludes for at least one Member of the Cross Benches to put my noble friend right about that and give us all a proper, egalitarian assurance.

Turning to the amendment, I remind noble Lords of my general position. I said at Second Reading that in any 21st-century democracy, there will always be a case that the legislature should be elected. That must surely be the default position, and it must apply to both Houses. All those who say that you cannot have two elected Houses are ignorant of the vast majority of functioning democracies which do have two elected Houses, although they are often different in their composition and method of election. Of course, it is perfectly possible to have two elected Houses that work together to generate effective legislation. That is what I find so frustrating about a large part of the debate, and I have sat in for much of the debate today.

My noble friend makes a sally. I do not intend to go into the details of whether it should be an open candidates list, a closed candidates list, a vetted candidates list or any of the other tunes that could be played on this theme; I simply say that he put his finger on something in saying that a House that is entirely appointed in a 21st-century democracy—with the exception of the Bishops—is mildly ludicrous and is indefensible as a long-term proposition. That is presumably why the Labour Party put forward in its manifesto a package of reforms to be delivered at different times; some immediately and some for consultation or enactment later—that is a clear distinction in the manifesto—and why it is such a frustration. The noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal seems to be frustrated that there is some sort of filibustering going on. If there were a filibuster, I wish somebody had told me about it: I would like to have taken part.

[Noble Lords]

You are.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

This is the first time that I have spoken in this debate. The two Bills that I have been involved in, sitting on the Front Bench, speaking for transport, have gone through your Lordships’ House in record time. The buses Bill ended on its third day of Committee when it had had four days allocated to it. I find it mildly offensive to be told that there is a filibuster going on when many of us are in fact working to see the House’s business dispatched with reasonable efficiency.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an interesting group of amendments and I praise the ingenuity of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, in coming up with their proposals. I say at the beginning, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, spoke specifically to the amendments before us. I have to say that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke in more of a Second Reading way on a wider debate about other issues.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am very happy to be rebuked, but I have spoken only once so far today. If the noble Baroness wants to provoke me to speak a second time, that is another matter. I think I spoke clearly to the import of what my noble friend Lord Lucas said, which is the introduction of an element of democracy, the importance of doing that and the context in which it sat, all of which I thought was very pertinent to the amendment. I am sorry the noble Baroness feels she has to disagree with me and rebuke me about that.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord is very sensitive. It was not a rebuke; it was more of an observation that his comments went wider. I think he would agree that he wanted very much to know what comes next. I also think he accused me of being silent—I made some notes of his comments. It may not have been the term “silent”, but it was something about my having nothing to say or bringing the shutters down on what he said.

I will talk to the amendment, but I have been clear from the beginning of the many debates we already had on this issue that there is a process, with this as the first stage. It is not surprising that talks and discussions about Lords reform have so many times, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, been driven into the ground and gone nowhere. Focusing on what is in front of us and what can be achieved by a single Bill is very important, but we seem to want to talk about what comes next and after that. Amendments later on will address some of these issues, but I say to noble Lords: there is a Bill before us with specific amendments and I will mainly address my comments mainly to them.

That does not mean what comes next does not matter, but I can think of no other area of policy or manifesto commitment where the Minister proposing it is constantly demanded to say what comes next and in what order we will do things. I have been quite clear from the very beginning that this is the first stage. It was in the manifesto and there are two stages following that. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, cannot help himself; I am beginning to love the sound of his voice. I look forward to hearing from him again.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham on his maiden speech and wish the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, every happiness in what I am sure and hope will be a long retirement with her family.

There have been only two successful attempts forcibly to remove a body of Members of Parliament, consisting mostly of one’s opponents, from Parliament. One was carried out by the New Model Army in the 17th century, and the other by the Labour Party in 1998. It is not a very flattering comparison, but it illustrates—or, at least, the former case illustrates—that violent action taken against this Parliament results only in constitutional complications that can take several years to extract oneself from.

One has to ask oneself: what is the practical political benefit to the nation of carrying out this measure? There could be several. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, could have said that her purpose is to achieve a permanent reduction in the size of your Lordships’ House. She could have said that her purpose is to create capacity for the appointment of Labour Peers to fill up those places. A perfectly respectable case could be made for doing either, but in fact she has given no practical benefit or purpose for carrying through this measure. The Government are doing this entirely because they can, which is exactly the same rationale that Colonel Pride used.

I take this opportunity to say that the attempt by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, somehow to blame the Conservatives, and particularly my noble friend Lord True, for this measure, on the grounds that he should have embraced the Grocott Bill in the past, does not succeed in putting me or many of my colleagues on the moral back foot. Many of us were not here for the Grocott Bill; we know almost nothing about it. I did not reject the Grocott Bill, because nobody ever asked me to give an opinion on it. The one thing I would say about the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for whom I have a great deal of respect, is that the abolition of the by-elections for hereditary Peers—by what undoubtedly remain legally dubious means—has the very sad result that we will be deprived of his commentary on the results of the by-elections on each occasion that they are announced. That has always been a highlight for me and, I think, for many other noble Lords.

I turn to the political and constitutional basis for what the Government are doing, which rests, of course, on their manifesto. To anybody picking up their manifesto, as I have many times, it is absolutely plain that under the heading

“Immediate reform of the House of Lords”,


a series of measures and commitments is proposed. One is the removal of hereditary Peers but there are others that I do not need to recite since they have been mentioned several times. They include the age limit, getting rid of disgraced Peers and so forth. There is a list of them. They sit together quite clearly as part of that immediate commitment. There is another commitment, which has no timeline attached to it—a separate matter—which is that

“Labour will consult on proposals, seeking the input of the British public”.

That does not have a timeline commitment, but the others do, and they clearly belong as a package.

Today, and previously in a meeting that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was good enough to have with all Peers, she said, particularly in respect of my comment about this in an earlier debate, that I had “missed the full stop at the end of the sentence”. It is true that I may be at fault. I had taken little notice of the full stop at the end of the sentence. I assumed that there would be a full stop at the end of the sentence. It turns out that this full stop is to bear a constitutional weight that the noble Baroness relies on. God knows where we would be if there had been a paragraph break at the end of the sentence.

In that meeting, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, characterised my position as “Do nothing until you do everything”. That has never been my position. My position is that the Labour Party should commit to carrying out, and show us that it is carrying out, its own manifesto. Why is that so difficult?

House of Lords Reform

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I surprise myself by taking as my starting point agreement with the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Foulkes, that in a democratic society there is always a case for a democratically elected legislature—and that is to understate the matter, I would have thought. Legitimacy in a democratic society is derived primarily from election but, for a conservative, legitimacy can also be derived from history and from tradition. It might sound a little quixotic to say that, but large numbers of people in this country completely understand it; that is why they have as much respect as they do for the monarchy.

It is the presence of hereditary Peers in this House that maintains that strand of legitimacy. Being appointed gives you no legitimacy at all. For the majority of people, it just looks like cronyism and, if I may say so with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who has just spoken, and to others, that is not addressed by having a statutory HOLAC. If that is not elected—if it is not in itself a form of electoral college—where does the electoral legitimacy reside that justifies its appointment of the people whom it would appoint to the legislature? One ends up in an infinite regress. There is no legitimacy.

Those who say you cannot have two democratic Chambers seem to have missed what has happened in at least 100 countries that I can think of. Even the United States manages to pass a huge amount of legislation, and that is a country where people deliberately designed the legislature to have a degree of conservatism, shall we say—a degree of holding back. That needs to be our starting point. Why should we not be a democratic House? Where does our legitimacy derive from?

There is a large measure of agreement among us on the need for reform. The passing of the hereditaries has always been part of that—there has been a consensus about that for the last 25 years—but that is not what this argument is about. This argument is not about the passage of the hereditaries as such; it is about the context in which that happens. That context is meant to be, and has been pledged to be, a reform of this House. I am not going back to what Tony Blair may have said to somebody in a corridor or behind the Woolsack or whatever in the past. I am going to this Labour Party’s manifesto.

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said there were six proposals in it; I have identified seven. They come under the heading: “Immediate reform of the House of Lords”. Those are the words in the manifesto, a copy of which I have been careful to bring with me in case there is any dispute about it. They are removing the hereditaries. There is mandatory retirement at 80. There is a revision of the code of standards. There is the removal of disgraced Members. There is a requirement for participation. There is a reform of the appointments process and a commitment to addressing national and regional balance. All of those come under the heading of “These things will be done immediately”. They are not being done immediately. That is the problem. The democratisation of the House, which is also mentioned in the manifesto, is something that they say will be consulted on. It is not to be done immediately but the seven things I have read out are—and they are not.

This Government, in my view, have no mandate to introduce one of them outside that context—to revert to the argument that getting rid of the hereditaries is what it is all about when in fact it is not. For the last 25 years, it has always been about the reform of the House of Lords and removing the hereditaries only in a context that provides a new form of legitimacy. We all know in practice that nothing is going to be done about those things. We know that they are being kicked into the long grass and we are very unlikely to see them again, except possibly for a few administrative matters which can be dealt with fairly easily.

We have had arguments over the last century about reform of the House of Lords and I join others in saying this or something along these lines. In 1910 and 1948 constitutional conferences were held between both Houses of Parliament on precisely this type of question. We should do that again. Neither conference succeeded but they had the great merit that they informed the legislation the Government then brought forward so that it was much more acceptable and turned out to work. We need to see this in its proper context. We need to find a compromise. A conference of that character would be the best way forward while the Bill is withdrawn.

House of Lords: Composition

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I recall the Countess of Mar from some years ago, and there may have been one other Member of the House of Lords who was a female hereditary Peer. There is none currently and, as far as I am aware, none is eligible for election in the hereditary Peers by-elections.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I return to the extraordinary decision to use the standing orders of this House in order to avoid our statutory obligations in relation to the holding of excepted Peers’ by-elections? When I raised it before, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said that she was confident that that move did not breach the law. However, it has since been suggested to me that the legal advice she received was more ambivalent on the matter. Is she willing to publish the legal advice on which that extraordinary decision to avoid our statutory obligations was based and, in doing so, show respect for the rule of law?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

When that decision was taken, it was entirely and completely within the rule of law. The legislation states that the House should hold by-elections. How it holds them is a matter for this House. I was approached by Members from across the House, including from Front Benches, who said that they wished that those by-elections would not take place during the passage of the Bill. Therefore, the House made the decision, under its Standing Orders, to pause the by-elections for a period of 18 months. That is entirely within the law and was done with the full agreement of this House.

Business of the House

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Leader of the House for explaining the rationale of this Motion, which, as she said, reflects the recent discussions and agreement reached in the usual channels. On behalf of my noble friend Lord True, I am happy to give my approval to the Motion as the right and sensible course to take. As the noble Baroness is aware, the spirit of the discussions in the usual channels has been open and constructive, with good will expressed on all sides. I welcome the Government’s willingness to continue engaging in the same constructive spirit and in a way that enables us to work through the implications of their proposals for this House in the round and in their totality. The 18-month timeframe proposed in the Motion will enable us to do that. On that basis, I join the noble Baroness in commending it to the House.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am slightly concerned about this. I am not a usual channel and the conversations that have taken place with such amity and warmth seem not to have reached me. I was unable, I am afraid, to be present for the debate on an humble Address on Tuesday, but I have read it carefully in Hansard and great attention and sanctification were given to the principle of the rule of law.

We have a statutory obligation to hold these by-elections. To proceed by using standing orders to eviscerate, in effect, that statutory obligation, which is what we are doing, seems to cast a very early question on this commitment to the rule of law that we have heard about. Understanding fully, of course, that this Motion will pass, I ask the Leader of the House why 18 months has been chosen and what that portends for the Government’s legislative timetable in relation to the reforms they wish to bring forward. We have no excuse here as we did before in relation to Covid; we are not in the middle of a major global health emergency, which was what justified the use of standing orders before, so can the noble Baroness explain to us what the Government’s plans are that make 18 months the appropriate time? Why could it not be six months?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I never quite thought this day would come. We have had endless Private Members’ Bills and numerous discussions on the Floor of the House, and now we have recognition, which I am delighted about, from the usual channels that to hold two further hereditary Peers’ by-elections at a time when Parliament was considering ending such elections would make us even more of a laughing stock than these by-elections do in any case.

I have to say it slowly: this almost certainly means the end of hereditary Peers’ by-elections. That is wonderful as far as I am concerned. It means an end to the clerk having to moonlight as a returning officer; it means an end to me having to give observations on the political significance of a particular by-election as and when it is declared; and of course it means that I shall not fulfil my ambition, which was to become the House’s equivalent of Professor Sir John Curtice in relation to by-elections. I should say as well, just as a general observation, that it means an end to elections that are men-only elections and an end to elections such as one where there was an electorate of three and six candidates—unknown in the western, eastern, northern or southern world, as far as I know.

So the time has come at last, in a puff of smoke on a damp Thursday morning, when these wretched by-elections will come to a conclusion. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan: know when it is over.