House of Lords Reform

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, from the perspective of being at the tail-end on the Back Benches, I can truly say that this has been a far more interesting debate than I thought it would be when I saw the speakers’ list this morning. This debate is about a great House of Parliament—one that has, I would argue, held its reputation for seriousness, scrutiny and revision. Today’s debate has proven that. As my noble friend Lord Wakeham said earlier this afternoon, the House of Lords does what it is supposed to do; we have done that today in debating this issue.

As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said earlier, we are here today only because of the Bill before another place, but what he sees as a virtue I see as a dismal failure—namely, the failure of the Government to keep their word to the House, made 25 years ago, that the remaining hereditary Peers would leave when a proper reform was enacted. I clearly remember the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, happily agreeing to the by-elections because, as he said then, they would never happen because the Government would bring forward a proper reform Bill early in the new Parliament; that is why the by-elections would not take place until the second Session of the subsequent Parliament. Of course, as we all now know, there was no second reform Bill.

Here we are, 25 years later, with Labour’s tired old ideological song about removing the right of the hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords, yet there is still no proper reform, and no thought, and Labour seeks to blame us for its failure.

What is the way forward? I am one of the few people in Parliament who was part of a process that successfully brought a full reform Bill before another place. In 2012, the House of Lords Reform Bill passed its Second Reading on an overwhelming vote, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, reminded us, but fell because Labour would not co-operate on a timetable Motion. I sat on two Joint Committees, one chaired by Jack Straw and one successfully by Nick Clegg, building on straw. It was cross-party, both Houses were represented, it was focused, and it came ultimately to an agreement that was reflected in the Bill that was presented.

I believe that the only credible motivator for reform is the existence of hereditary Peers. I urge the Government to reconvene a Joint Committee of both Houses—we have seen how it worked in the past—to sit and come up with a proper plan that reflects well on democracy and our democratic traditions, and maintains the House’s reputation for excellence. So much has changed since 1999 that we can take account of—the new devolved Administrations in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the new metro mayors in England and the GLA. We should look at the case for direct or indirect elections from these bodies and see how representation in the Lords can be improved.

I sense a dilemma at the heart of the speech by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. She said that the Lords is complementary and an asset to the Commons—and I agree—and that it has deep historical roots. But she was afraid of being seen to do nothing. Surely doing nothing is better than deeply damaging the Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, warned. Of course, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House promised further reform—participation, age limits, tighter appointment systems and so on—but I have no faith whatever that any of that will happen once the Bill has passed. I am with my noble friend Lord Forsyth on that.

Surely there are better ways of going forward, such as the example set in 1922 when the new Irish Peers were stopped from coming here but the old ones could stay on until they died.

On that note, from time to time we hear that there will be life peerages for some hereditary Peers, such as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, the Convenor of the Cross Benches, and my noble friend Lord Howe, but why is all this secret? Why can the Minister not tell us, in this quiet of the night, exactly what the Labour Party has planned and remove the threat of immediate execution from these Peers?

The Bill has passed in another place this evening without any serious debate. We shall have to wait for the Bill to come to our House to give it proper and full scrutiny. I finish with a plea to the noble Baroness. If we have 50-plus speakers at Second Reading, can we please have a two-day debate and not be limited to five minutes?