House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support the Bill, moved so ably and wittily by my noble friend Lord Grocott. I want to start by asking a question that many people outside this House are asking: what is the House of Lords for? What is our purpose? Some Members opposite, no doubt including the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, think that it is for wise men—particularly men, reluctantly accepting women now—to advise the Commons, to offer our wisdom, but ultimately to accept our impotence. I do not believe that is how the second Chamber of a bicameral system should operate. It is entirely ridiculous. We have no authority whatsoever. We have no legitimacy whatsoever. Ultimately, this place has to be reformed. I am glad that my party—the Labour Party—is in favour of an indirectly elected senate of the nations and regions. On other occasions I will argue the case in favour of that.

Meanwhile, as we acknowledge in the Labour group in the Lords, and indeed other people have acknowledged, there is a need for reforming our existing structure. We have set up a committee to look at the size of the House. I am not sure that it is the wisest thing to have as chair someone who, though a very distinguished former civil servant, is not one of the best attenders of the House, to see how we actually operate. But there we are; we have that.

Meanwhile, one of the things that I hope will be looked at is ending the participation of all the hereditary Peers, as well as ending the by-elections. Those who should legitimately sit here or who now have a place to offer some wisdom or advice in the House could become life Peers, on the clear understanding that they are, like most of us who have been appointed, working Peers. We should see the second Chamber as based on the concept of working Peers.

Working Peers, however, need some assistance. I was sitting in my office the other day in Millbank House, and the telephone rang. Naturally, I answered it, and someone from a large company asked, “Could I speak to Lord Foulkes’s diary secretary?”. I said, “Yes, you are speaking to Lord Foulkes’s diary secretary”, and I fixed myself an appointment. We do not have diary secretaries; most of us do not even have secretaries.

I had some correspondence with the Clerk of the Parliaments recently, just the other day, suggesting that he might second one of the members of his extensive staff to help me. He thought I was joking, but I am not. People outside this House genuinely believe that, like MPs, we have three or four people working for us: doing our research; making our appointments; dealing with correspondence—I said this in my letter—and emails and phone calls; dealing with invitations; arranging our travel; and dealing with our committee papers, for those of us who are active on committees.

Then there is dealing with the ever-increasing demands of Black Rod—who is not my favourite person in this House—for security. We have to inform security about every visit, which I can understand as far as security is concerned, but it does impose additional burdens on us. How do we deal with it? We have absolutely no one to help us. It is ridiculous in the 21st century.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Can he tell the House whether he would like to employ anybody to write his speeches?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I was going to refer to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as my noble friend, but I am not sure whether I should. The speeches would certainly be much better than they are at the moment. But he is right. I had two speeches yesterday in Grand Committee—one on St Helena and the other on Brexit—and here I am speaking today. If we want to participate we have to do research, do the work and try and think of—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I join noble Lords on both sides of the House in congratulating my noble friend on bringing forward this Bill once again. As a personal friend of his for almost 50 years—I hope that I can refer to myself in such terms—I think that he is in grave danger of getting his fingers burned for the second time. Given the speeches we have heard from the other side of the House, it is apparent that there will be substantial opposition to the Bill, and that that will be conducted in the same deplorable way as it was a year ago.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, on her speech. I fear that she will not have endeared herself to most of her colleagues, particularly the hereditaries, but I applaud her courage none the less. I think that there are three female speakers out of 20-plus speakers in this debate, which illustrates the point she sought to make about your Lordships’ House.

I marginally commend some of the speeches made by hereditary Peers. All of them have managed to fan my fading embers of class warfare, particularly my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who does this on a regular basis. They always manage to do that when they speak in your Lordships’ House. Listening to them reminds me why I joined the Labour Party all those years ago. We heard a wonderful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who sought to take this House back to not the last century but the one before, I would have thought. It is somewhat unwise, if I might have the temerity to say this to the noble Lord, to refer to speeches in the present-day House of Lords as predetermined, turgid and boring when you are reading every word yourself. One is inclined to think that that is indeed the pot calling the kettle black. As for the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, I had the privilege of hearing him speak on this matter on two occasions. Again, to proffer some advice as a former railwayman, he ought to get out more. If he spoke to one or two more people about the composition of this House, they might well edge away at best, and at worst resort to violence. So I urge him to be careful.

We are time-constrained, and much of what I wanted to say has been said. However, I return first to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who, unaccountably, failed to respond to the rather mischievous intervention from my noble friend Lord Howarth. I referred to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, as an arriviste some time ago, because his hereditary title does not compare in length, for example, to that of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I have long since given up trying to convince the noble Earl in these debates of the sensible nature of the Bill, but I returned, more in hope than expectation, to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, because he has been here a long time. He plays an important role; I have watched him going around the building on numerous occasions—a word here, an elbow there, nudging and fixing, and he does it extremely well. But it does not entitle him to permanent membership of your Lordships’ House. Nor does he justify the preposterous electoral system that has been so rightly condemned on both sides in this debate.

I do not want to write the response of the noble Lord, Lord Young, for him, but we all know what it will be. As my noble friend Lord Anderson indicated, some degree of sympathy will be expressed for the Bill. He will congratulate my noble friend Lord Grocott on his lucid and witty manner in moving it. He will say that the Government are not particularly against it— but of course they will not be for it. Of course, he is a former Chief Whip. I never attained those heights; I was, I must admit, a Whip in the other place—one of these deplorable characters so rightly condemned by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft—but both I and he know that the advice which, as Chief Whip, he would have given to any Prime Minister when it came to Lords reform would be, “Don’t touch it with a bargepole”. If the Blair Government, with a majority of whatever it was—300—could not get rid of only 92 hereditary Peers, there is not much hope that this lot will reform your Lordships’ House given the current political situation in the other House. I am sure that in his lucid, emollient and always listenable way, the noble Lord, Lord Young, will sympathise with the Bill but will tell us that the Government cannot do it.

As for long-term reform of your Lordships’ House, the first time I heard that discussed was in a Labour Party meeting 50 years ago, and it has not been reformed very much since. I am not a gambler, but I would wager a few pounds that it will not be reformed in any significant sense in the lifetime of any of us who are participating in this debate today. So all speed to the Bill as far as my noble friend is concerned, but I fear that like the man who put the candle out twice, he will get his fingers burnt a second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

I advise the noble Lord to stop digging. This wondrous independence and spirit of quality and intellectual debate invariably resulted in a House that always supported Conservative Governments and caused no end of trouble to Labour Governments. I will leave that one there.

I could not improve on my good friend Lord Snape. He has lost none of it in 50 years; he really can turn it on when he needs to. I was always deeply respectful of him. He reports the fact that I was his Chief Whip, but he was my Whip in the 1970s, when he reportedly put next to my name “WWWW”, which meant, “Works well when watched”.

[Lord Snape]

Will my noble friend accept the perception of my views at that time? He has come along very well since.

[Lord Grocott]

I saw no arguments in favour of the by-elections, apart from the one that I really want to put to rest now, which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, repeats time and again about this compromise reached in 1999 which resulted in the 92 hereditary Peers remaining. The noble Lord, Lord True, referred to the fact that I was involved to some extent in that because I was working in Downing Street at the time. I remind him of what I still feel was breath-taking about what happened then. A Labour Government, elected on the clearest possible manifesto commitment to end the hereditary principle as a basis for being in the second Chamber—a Labour Government with a record post-war majority of more than 150—brought that proposal to this House. It was made clear in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and others that the Bill, with a huge majority and manifesto commitment, would not be allowed to pass unless major concessions were made, of which these 92 Peers are the result. That was not normal parliamentary procedure resulting in this binding agreement; it was blackmail. That is the only argument that has been put forward to continue with these by-elections. It is a history lesson that ought to be written according to what actually happened.

The only other argument I have picked up is that, somehow or other, the hereditary Peers here provide a constant incentive towards swift movement towards a fully comprehensive elected House. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is in a better position than me because he was there longer: there were loads of debates in the other place on an elected House, but I never heard anyone say that we need to do this because the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Elton, or the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, are insisting that it happens. By definition it simply has not worked. Those Members who want a fully elected House, of which I am not one, have not been able for various reasons to deliver it, so this incentive that allegedly is there clearly is not working. We should remember that as well.

The only really helpful, constructive attempt to move forward on this, other than what I think is the only sensible way to proceed, which is my Bill unamended—although I always listen to what the noble Lords, Lord Cope and Lord Cormack, and others, have to say—is that there should be an election of the whole House whenever a vacancy occurs rather than these absurd party by-elections with minuscule electorates. I partly answered it in my opening remarks. Even when that happens, less than half the House participates. I always regarded it as a waste of time and I am clearly not the only one. That does not enhance the quality of the democracy, and—this is an even more substantial point made brilliantly by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge—it does not alter the fundamental flaw that, on the register of hereditary Peers as it stands, there are 198 names, 197 of whom are men. Changing the Standing Orders and having an electorate comprising the whole House would not alter that fundamental problem any more than it would alter the fundamental problem of why on earth the only people entitled to stand should be the heirs of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, or the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, although we hope their heirs do not materialise for a long period yet in their new titles. Why should their heirs have an assisted places scheme to get into the House of Lords?

We all think our arguments are pretty convincing. I think the argument I and many of my noble friends put forward are absolutely overwhelming, so let us get on with it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I should inform the Committee that if Amendment 11 is agreed to, I am unable to call Amendments 17 to 33A by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I query the terms of the amendment. What is behind it? Every time we debate this piece of legislation, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, appear, like woolly mammoths from the permafrost, with a series of amendments. As I understand this amendment, the noble Lord wants any excepted hereditary Peer to be younger than the average age of Members of the House of Lords. He will correct me if I have got that wrong.

The noble Lord set a fine example himself. As my noble friend Lord Grocott indicated, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has spent no fewer than 56 years as a Member in your Lordships’ House. As I understand it, he took his place in the House on his 21st birthday. I hope he does not think me rude if I say that, by the look of him, that was some time ago. It was, in fact, in June 1962 and he has been here ever since. In that year, as I am sure some of my noble friends well remember, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones cut their first records and Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. In 1962, I was a humble lance-corporal in the Royal Engineers, yet at that time the noble Lord was studying the wine list in the Members’ Dining Room. He is thoroughly institutionalised.

Although the motives for the amendment are creditable, the Committee deserves a fuller explanation of the thinking behind it. After all, he set a fine example himself, being scarcely out of his teens. Indeed, following the untimely death of his father, had the rules of your Lordships’ House been different in 1962, he would have taken his seat even earlier; he had to wait until his 21st birthday to do so. We are due some clarification from him about the terms and the meaning of this amendment, otherwise—perish the thought—we might think that this is just yet another attempt to delay this piece of legislation.

[The Earl of Caithness]

I cannot speak for my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that the reason for tabling this amendment is that we are concerned about the average age of the House, which has gone up. One great advantage of having hereditary Peers here is the youth that is involved. If the noble Lord looks at the average age of life Peer appointments, he will see that, of the last 15 appointed, one was in their 80s, two were in their 70s, with most in their 60s. This eventually will shove the average age of the House up. I see the purpose of the amendment as to try to keep a balance and to keep the average age of the House as low as practicably possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, to refer to the point made in my noble friend Lord Northbrook’s amendment, the question of the Scottish Peers was of course addressed when what became the 1999 Act went through your Lordships’ House. As I recall, although it is now a long time ago, the Scottish Peers petitioned the House for exclusion from the provisions of the 1999 Act. They were represented by none other than the then Mr Richard Keen—now none other than my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie himself. His petition did not succeed.

[Lord Snape]

Will the noble Lord answer the point I put to him and tell us the thinking behind his own amendment—otherwise we might think that he has tabled it somewhat mischievously?

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I have nothing to add to the remarks I made earlier.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Erroll]

The difference is that because we are here and that is found objectionable by some people, we might get a democratic House. If we go, we will not. Those of us who are democrats think that there should be democratic authority and legitimacy in the House of Lords for it to survive long term.

[Lord Snape]

Can the noble Earl tell us how many of his ancestors fought for democracy and where?

[The Earl of Erroll]

I think I should answer that question later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

My Lords, I shall now address Amendment 33A, which, alongside Amendment 33, which addresses the Liberal Democrat question, addresses a glaring defect in this legislation. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is no longer in his place. I have tried to persuade him before now, outside of this House, to address the point that Amendment 33A seeks to address. I do not wish to see this Bill proceed for wider reasons, but if it does, it will lead not only to the creation of a wholly nominated House—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and one that I have made—but, as alluded to earlier in our discussions, to a rebalancing over time of political strength in the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is returning. I apologise for having said that he was not in his place. I do not wish to repeat to the House, but I made the point that the noble Lord and I have discussed outside the House the Bill’s impact on the political balance in the House over time. The position is that, because of the way the colleges came into being—I was involved in the negotiations in 1999—the hereditary peerage currently constitutes I think 48, at the moment, although 49 is the normal number and maybe that has just changed, of the total Conservative strength. Some 20% of the Conservative Party’s strength in this House—the party of government—is provided for by hereditary Peers as a result of a historical, or I might call it incremental, evolution of the nature of the House.

[Lord Snape]

On that point, would the noble Lord reflect that back in 1945, when the Attlee Government were elected by a very substantial majority, there were I think six hereditary Labour Peers in this place? The vast majority of the Liberal Democrats, who he complains about, were created by a Conservative Prime Minister during the coalition. It seems that his main source of complaint about political imbalance in this place is based on the fact that there would be a dilution of the centuries-old Conservative majority.

[Lord Northbrook]

Quite a few Lib Dem Peers were created under Tony Blair’s Government.

[Lord Snape]

I am not quite sure who is intervening on who here, but I was one of Tony Blair’s Peers. I remind the noble Lord that when Tony Blair was elected in 1997, with a very substantial majority indeed, much of the legislation in the early part of that first Parliament was blocked by the Tory majority in this House. “Tony’s cronies”, as they were known, pale into insignificance compared with the number of Peers created by David Cameron during his period. He said openly that this House should reflect the majority of the Government of the day in the House of Commons and behaved accordingly. We should have a bit less of this point from the noble Lord, Lord True. He should come back to reality and stick to his amendment.

[Lord True]

The noble Lord might hear a bit less if he did not provoke me by making an intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

That is what Parliament is for, though the noble Lord might not agree with it. He might not have conducted himself in the same way when he ran that local council—but that is the way this place works and he should get used to the fact.

[Lord True]

The noble Lord imputes to me things that I do not agree with. I have given way to him twice and enjoy his interventions. It is only that if he makes an intervention, it requires a courteous answer from me. That is the point that I was trying to make—not that he was not right to intervene.

I shall come back to my fundamental point, but I have to address the point that the noble Lord made. The historical position in 1945 was entirely different. There were no life Peers; there was a historic House, with, yes, a huge preponderance of Conservatives, partly as a result of the Irish home rule debate and partly as a result of the rise of the Labour Party, which gave great service, and still gives great service, to this country. There was an imbalance. That was addressed within that House by convention and by mutual respect—the kind of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham, spoke about earlier that enables the House to work: fairness. The great reforming Labour Government of 1945 changed Britain with the acquiescence of the House of Lords, notwithstanding the numbers. That is the historical reality.

I do not think that it is really relevant to the present position, which, to return to the argument that I was trying to make, is that 20% of the Conservative Party’s strength in this House is made up of hereditary Peers. We have heard distinguished contributions from the Cross Benches today. Sixteen per cent of their strength in this House, because of the way the colleges were agreed in the negotiations with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, is made up of hereditary Peers. In the case of the Liberal Democrats, it is 4% or perhaps 5%, and in the case of the Labour Party it is 2%. The raw numbers are different. We would lose over time on our side 49; the Labour Party would lose four—a difference of 45 net votes. That would obviously have an effect on the composition of the House. Meanwhile, the majority of the House is saying perfectly reasonably—I do not happen to agree with the argument—that the numbers of the House should be limited. I agree with the Prime Minister’s restraint in creating new peerages; David Cameron created far too many—perhaps including this one.

[Lord True]

Tony Blair went much further. He went up to 354.

[Lord Snape]

He did no such thing.

[Lord True]

He created 354 Peers, my Lords. Again, we do not want to get sidetracked, but I will send the noble Lord the figures.

If this Bill goes through, there would a disproportionate attrition in the numbers of Conservative Peers and Cross-Bench Peers at a time when the call from everybody in the House is not to create new Peers and to limit the number to 600. The effect of the Bill would be noticeably to reduce over time the proportion of Conservative and Cross-Bench Peers in the House. That is a perfectly reasonable aspiration of the parties opposite, but it is not a proper effect of a Private Member’s Bill. I have therefore suggested an amendment which, in this transitional period when we are told that great new incremental reform is coming after the Burns report, provides that, so long as the reforms proceed and if this Bill goes through, there should be an understanding—just as there was an understanding in 1999 that if a Labour Peer died, the Conservatives would vote for a Labour Peer under the Carter convention.

To avoid that disproportionate effect, whereby the Conservatives would lose nearly 50 out of 250 Peers whereas Labour would lose four out of nearly 200, there should be provision for a life peerage to be created, rather than election to take place, so that there would be a steady state in political strength in this House. That would ameliorate the political impact of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, the effect of which I and many others believe—I am not entering into the question of the hereditary peerage, although, as noble Lords will know, I have my views on it—would be to create a disproportionate political strike over time at two parts of the House: the Conservatives and the Cross Benches.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

We are giving it consideration. It was that eureka moment in the bath that has prompted this debate. My noble friend Lord Forsyth knows full well my position on hereditary Peers. I do not think that they should be here, and I also think that this ought to be an elected House. However, in 1999 there was a binding-in-honour agreement that the hereditary Peers would stay here until stage 2 of House of Lords reform. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, never refers to that and I can quite understand why, but to us it was a fundamental part of the agreement. If I am being criticised for standing up for a binding agreement and principle, so be it, and I am very sad that other noble Lords do not take the same principled view on the matter.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Far from it being a noble quest back in 1999, those of us who were in the other place at the time seem to recollect that it was a rather squalid agreement to preserve the neck of the Conservative Party.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, that is the noble Lord’s interpretation of the agreement. I was not party to it, but it was introduced by the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, and it was binding in Privy Council terms on all of us who took part in that debate. That was a binding commitment. I have tabled an amendment that we shall come to later to try to help the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, get to the same position that I want to get to, which is to get rid of the hereditary Peers in this House.

Perhaps I may return to my amendments. I set out in quite considerable detail how the House of Lords statutory appointments commission should work. It will come as no surprise to my noble friend Lord Young on the Front Bench because he will recognise the details. They come from Schedules 5 and 6 to the 2012 Bill, which, sadly, failed in another place. I would have supported it had it come to this House. His name was on that Bill, as indeed was Danny Alexander’s, so I presume that the Liberal party still supports a statutory appointments commission, and I look forward to getting the support of its Members for this.

I do something slightly different from my noble friend. I set out that there should be a House of Lords appointments commission, and, equally and importantly, that there should be a Speakers’ committee comprising 13 members, as designed in 2012, to oversee the statutory appointments commission. It was drafted by a government draftsman, so I will not go into any detail, but I hope that the House will give this consideration. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, there would be a lacuna. When the hereditary Peers go, it would be a much better arrangement if there were a totally independent committee to look at all appointments. My amendment covers all that. Proposed new subsection (4) in Amendment 58 says that it should come into operation,

“on a statutory basis, with the role of screening, selecting and recommending all persons for appointment to the House of Lords”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, Professor Meg Russell of UCL’s Constitution Unit, who is an acknowledged expert on House of Lords matters, said that the non-statutory Appointments Commission,

“has helped to transform the Crossbenches into a more active place where members arrive better prepared, and there is now a clear distinction between independent and party peers. It has also been possible to use these appointments to somewhat improve the gender and ethnic balance in the chamber, and fill clear expertise/professional gaps”.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay of Ewelme, is reported to have told the committee that,

“by focusing on merit, quality and diversity, the Commission had helped to bring much-needed experience to the cross-benches”.

He added that,

“figures for gender diversity, ethnic minorities and disability on the cross-benches are considerably higher than among members of the House … as a whole”.

Some members of the committee, such as Meg Russell, argue that the non-statutory commission should be given more powers. I fear that this would not work. There are problems with its non-statutory basis. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in giving evidence said:

“While the existing Appointments Commission acts with scrupulous care and excellent judgement it is not satisfactory, to itself or anyone else, that it has no statutory basis, it invents its own remit and makes up its own rules as it goes along. There should be a statutory Appointments Commission, its task defined in general terms by Parliament and plain for the public to see”.


I agree, and believe that this amendment is important for the future appointments process.

I will make a few more general remarks. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was saying, in 1999 the Lord Chancellor—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine—replied:

“I say quite clearly that … the position of the excepted Peers shall be addressed in phase two reform legislation”.—[Official Report, 22/6/1999; cols. 798-800.]


He also said, in March 1999:

“The amendment reflects a compromise negotiated between Privy Councillors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent”.—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]


As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was Tony Blair’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, he must have been well aware of all this. To the hereditary peerage, it was a vital part of the 1999 Act and an additional reason to let it have satisfactory progress through the House.

[Lord Snape]

I appeal to the noble Lord not to try to rewrite history in the way that he is doing. Does he not recollect that the deal in 1999 to which he refers was done in such an underhand way that it led to the resignation of the Conservative leader of the Peers in this House? There was nothing particularly noble about it; rather the reverse.

[Lord Northbrook]

With respect to the noble Lord, I was not part of that deal so I cannot go into the detail of it. With reference to the Burns report, I have just seen that the Government do not accept the committee’s recommendation that the Prime Minister must now commit to a specific cap on numbers, absolutely limiting appointments in line with the formula proposed. Thus an important element of the Burns report is deemed to be invalid and the major reform which was promised for phase 2 is incomplete.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, ducked the opportunity to explain to this House why he is a Member.

[Lord Snape]

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said earlier that he was just like everyone else: a hereditary Peer, and one could not tell the difference between the two. Did he think that when we walked through from the Division Lobby a moment ago there was some confusion among noble Lords as to who was the former railwayman and who was the Scottish landowner?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I could not possibly comment on that nor tell the difference between the two. It was a pleasure to be in the Lobbies with the noble Lord, Lord Snape, and I was glad that we had a good conversation. However, I say again to my noble friend Lord Cormack that if really wants to have a Division on every single amendment, he may find this Bill delayed a bit more. That is the law of unintended consequences. I suggest that my noble friend does not try it again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

My Lords, I suggest that a feature of this group of amendments—indeed, of all the others too with the single exception of Amendment 2A, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—is the destruction of the Bill’s essential purpose: to abolish hereditary Peers for the future but keep our present invaluable 90, or 92. The original proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was at least consistent with the Bill in the sense that he was prepared, as he said, to accept the abolition of future elections provided that we introduce a statutory HOLAC but that is not true of the rest of these amendments.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak on this group of amendments but I was provoked to do so by the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. He was around in 1999; indeed, I am pretty sure that he played a major role in what took place then. It is all very well for the likes of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, to pray in aid the agreement that came about then and use it as an excuse to say that it was a solemn and binding—he did not use that particular phrase—way to reform the House, that it was at only an initial stage and that he intended to continue that reform later, but the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, knows full well how the 1999 agreement came about. It was accepted by the Labour Government because the Conservative majority in the House of Lords at the time was enormous. Despite the equally enormous Labour majority down the corridor as a result of the 1997 election, that Conservative majority, in which the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, played a major role, made it quite plain that it was either this particular deal or no reform of the House of Lords at all. So let us not have any nonsense that this was merely stage one and talk of solemn and binding promises.

Indeed, that agreement came about without the knowledge and permission of the leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. The leader of the Labour Peers in the House of Lords lost his job as a result of the agreement. He was a descendant of Lord Salisbury. I would have thought that it takes a lot to shift a Salisbury from your Lordships’ House, but that is exactly what happened. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, knows not only where the bodies are buried but I suspect wielded a shovel himself.

[Lord Strathclyde]

I really do think that I would try the patience of the House if I even attempted to respond to the noble Lord, so I will not do so, except perhaps another time in the bar.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I understand my noble friend’s intention, which is to try to guarantee some sort of regional representation in this House. That is very important, but I am not convinced that this is in fact the right way to do it. His amendment talks about, “hereditary peers representing Scotland”. Being someone who comes from Scotland—I was born in Scotland and live in Scotland—I do not suppose that anyone in Scotland thinks I am representing them. Indeed, the whole purpose of this House is not to represent anyone; we represent ourselves.

[Lord Snape]

The noble Lord is being too modest. After all, he owns a large chunk of Scotland, so who better to represent it?

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is a very kind thought from the noble Lord, but I do not represent Scotland or anyone in Scotland any more than he represents railway workers, train drivers, signalmen or anyone else involved in the transport industry. I hope my noble friend will withdraw this amendment and take it away.

[Lord Adonis]

My noble friend Lord Snape takes huge offence at that remark by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. He represents in his person all the railway workers of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Snape]

If I may say so, none of them Members of this House, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, said earlier.

[Lord Strathclyde]

Okay, my Lords, I can see that I have lost that particular argument with the noble Lord, Lord Snape.

At the end of the last amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, wanted to place on the record exactly what was going on. That was his version—his truth. But what is also going on here is an attempt to create an all-appointed House with no guarantees of representation from anywhere in the UK, as laid out in this amendment, which of course would be solved if we had an independent statutory appointments commission. It is in no way an argument to say that, just because the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, believes he is right, no one from any part of the House should be able to argue against him. I have witnessed the noble Lord arguing many times on Bills, and it would be an absurdity to change the rules to stop him, any more than it would be to stop my noble friend Lord Caithness.