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

Lord Snape Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, on my way to the House this morning, I thought I would try to avoid any class warfare as far as my noble friend’s Bill is concerned. I know that it is customary in your Lordships’ House to compliment the previous speaker but, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, I find some difficulty in doing so. If there is a class warrior to be commended for his contributions so far, it would be him. I will come back to him in a moment, but I just say to my noble friend that, whatever the weakness of the system of the Prime Minister making appointments to your Lordships’ House, at least there are two sons of railwaymen on these Benches. I reflect on a recent Sunday Times article on hereditary Peers that pointed out that no fewer than 39 of their ranks went to the same school. I am not going to name the school, because we all know what it is. It certainly was not West Bromwich Grammar; I assure your Lordships of that.

I do not want to fight the class battle that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, just outlined, but we are not about to abolish him if my noble friend’s Bill gets on the statute book. We are about to abolish only this nonsensical system of election. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in all friendship, that we are offering not his abolition but a chance to join the human race. He can join us and become like the rest of us. I cannot claim that your Lordships’ Benches, even on this side, are a fair cross-section of society—

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

No. The noble Lord intervened on my last speech on this business, took a chunk of my time, then pointed to the clock when I tried to respond, so he is not getting away with it twice. I want to bring him into the fold to be the same as the rest of us, which is the key to his opposition. He does not want to be the same as the rest of us; the hereditary Peers like the elitism of hereditary peerages and do not want to be made “mere” life Peers. We would not lose the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, if we went ahead and abolished hereditary Peers, any more than we would lose the wit and oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who has kept us entertained over half a dozen attempts to abolish the system of hereditary Peers.

We are offering the hand of friendship. We want hereditary Peers to join us and be like the rest of us. Looking back at the education of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, I think that he ought to be embraced by the rest of us because of what he had to go through. I read the Sunday Times article to which I referred and looked at what happened at Eton. Imagine being plucked from the bosom of the family at an early age and being sent to that school. You get up at the crack of dawn, are given a 12-bore and go out and shoot your own breakfast before starting. You have to put up with beatings—and worse, according to the tabloids—of sadistic teachers. When you get to maturity, you dress up in a quasi-military uniform and are photographed for posterity, earning your honours battling your way through the wine lists of expensive restaurants, sorting out a few waiters while you are doing it. When you leave, at the end of this long, expensive and painful schooling, you end up in a dead-end job—a stockbroker, banker or hedge-fund operative, whatever that may be. There are no long-term prospects in jobs like that.

Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft—who after a previous debate assured me of his own grandfather the first Lord Mancroft’s humble background—ended up a master of fox-hounds. Again, there is no future in a job like that. It is one of the reasons why I want him and his colleagues who went to this particular school, all 39 of them, to join the rest of us. When he does, he can reflect on those of us who were elected into the other place. Last time we debated my noble friend’s Bill, he had a few harsh words about former MPs dominating, as he put it, your Lordships’ House. He said that they come up the corridor, make speeches and want to do things—how dare they? At least, if he becomes one of us, he can convince us that perhaps the way forward is not to do things and not to make speeches in your Lordships’ House. We can mix together and become equals. That way, perhaps we can learn from him how better to conduct ourselves while we are in this House.

There are no advantages in the present system. It brings your Lordships’ House into disrepute. I do not know whether my noble friend’s Bill will reach the statute book on this occasion; I strongly suspect it will not, because of a lack of time. I hope he will persist and stop the nonsense of hereditary Peers being elected. He has amply outlined the paucity of the electorate for the future. No noble Lord who wants a proper future for this House, however it is organised or reorganised, would pretend that the present system is ideal, but all the alternatives present various difficulties. I do not envy any future Prime Minister who decides to embark on a wholescale reorganisation, but at least we can move forward in a small way if we accept my noble friend’s sensible proposals today. I give them my wholehearted support.