Succession to Peerages Bill [HL]

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Friday 11th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend Lord Trefgarne’s Succession to Peerages Bill. As an aficionado of the topic, I declare an interest as my title will die out under current peerage inheritance rules. I have a very capable eldest daughter who would be more than suitable to carry it on.

I believe that the Bill offers a way forward to prevent this extinction without seriously threatening the status quo for those peerages where there are male heirs. It is better than Lord Diamond’s Bills of 1992 and 1994, which proposed that hereditary Peers could petition the Crown to amend their letters patent so that the peerage could descend to the eldest legitimate child, male or female. It seems more logical than my noble friend Lord Lucas’s recent Bill, which sought to enable the succession of female heirs to hereditary peerages if the incumbent of the peerage wrote to the Lord Chancellor to ask that this should occur. I prefer it also to Mary Macleod’s Succession to Hereditary Peerages and Estates Bill in the other place, which included provision to remove male preference primogeniture in succession to hereditary peerages.

After the Succession to the Crown Act has passed, it seems only logical that appropriate change should be made for hereditary peerages. The House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s 2011 report on the rules of succession to the Crown noted that the proposal to end the preferential treatment of men in the line of succession had been,

“widely welcomed, and with good reason”.

It also drew attention to holders of hereditary peerages, noting that,

“the way in which their titles are inherited, and its effect on the gender balance in Parliament, remain matters of public interest”.

My noble friend Lord Fellowes of West Stafford stated in a submission to the Hereditary Peerage Association in 2008:

“People will tell you how difficult it would be and how it would involve re-creating all the peerages from new. … When”—

in the 1700s—

“the Duke of Marlborough was needed for another campaign and his only son was dead, a bill was introduced into Parliament granting a new remainder allowing a unique form of female descent to the existing title, without recreating it”.

As we have heard, my noble friend Lord Fellowes has now approved what are essentially the contents of this Bill, based on the Marlborough precedent.

In the same submission, my noble friend Lord Fellowes touched on his concern that, if nothing is done in this sphere, European law may step in with a solution of its own. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, surprisingly did not mention it, but as I understand it Section 14 of the Human Rights Act 1998 makes it now illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, where both sexes may perform the function required. Discriminating against women solely on the basis of their sex is also illegal. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has also mentioned to me that, if a legitimate female issue, where the peerage would otherwise become extinct, referred a case to the European Court of Human Rights, they could well have a chance of success. The organisation called The Hares—I think I see a couple in the audience—may well pursue this route, or much worse could happen if Mr Corbyn gets into power. It is far less disruptive to peerages, in my view, to pre-empt such a referral by enacting this Bill. Will the Minister give the Government’s thoughts on the outcome of such a referral, and their reaction to it?

I can understand the logic of Clause 3, which would guarantee a batch of new Peeresses, making the peerage look refreshed and modern from the first moment of the change, as opposed to having to wait years for any alteration really to show, and 1952 seems a sensible date. It is striking that there are currently no women on the most recent register of hereditary Peers who have put themselves forward to be eligible as candidates for future by-elections. All the hereditary by-elections since 1999 have been won by men. As of now, only one Peer of the 92 hereditary Peers who were allowed to continue in 1999 is female.

I have two other issues to raise. I think that there should be an amendment extending the change to baronets, although I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne about that being outside the Title of the Bill. I am not sure either about the principle in the Bill of excluding a very close relative such as a brother from inheriting a peerage. Ruling out cousins and distant relatives is fair enough as their expectations are never high, but a very close relation may be a step too far. As the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, stated, family financial arrangements could be seriously disrupted. There could be an argument for an amendment extending the peerage succession to brothers—a modification of the semi-Salic system, although it has to be said that an heir presumptive has never had the security of an heir apparent.

But overall I welcome this Bill wholeheartedly. It would merely put peerage succession on to the same basis as the Crown used to be. I wish it a safe passage through the House.