House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Swire Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to listen to most of the speeches today. Without singling out too many, it was particularly nice to hear my former House of Commons colleague, my noble friend Lord Brady of Altrincham, who is not in his place, make his very good maiden speech. He did that great trick as a writer: when anyone asks, “Am I in your book?”, he assents to the fact that they are, meaning they all rush out and buy it. What he did not realise is, being perfidious politicians, everyone will go to see if they are in the index; if not, they will not buy the book.

I was sorry to miss the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, because I understand it to have been a great speech. She and I crossed in the other place, and we both variously served as Ministers of State, not least in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We have that in common, and I wish her a well-earned retirement. But if there was any speech that impressed me most—perhaps not unexpectedly—it was that of the Convenor of the Cross Benches, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, this morning. He gave an extraordinarily interesting, intelligent and measured speech, as one would expect. There was much in it on which we would do well to reflect.

There will be opportunity enough in Committee to probe the Government closer on many of the points that we have heard often today. To avoid repetition, and with your Lordships’ indulgence, my comments will range wider than the narrow confines of this rather unsatisfactory Bill. I genuinely believe that the Government are missing a trick. Instead of nibbling around the edges of our fragile and rather well-balanced constitution, we should call for a royal commission on how this country is governed, not unlike the commission that produced the Kilbrandon report between 1969 and 1973.

Since devolution, and since Brexit when we lost our MEPs, we have had no serious cross-party discussion about how we wish this country to be administered and governed. I agree with my noble friend Lord Horam that more than half the problem of the system not working must be due to what is going on in the House of Commons. We need urgently to review the role of Members of Parliament, how many of them we want, their pay and conditions, and to try to get them to behave as Members of Parliament. I regret to say that it was, I believe, the Liberal Democrats who rather skewered the behaviour of MPs. As a Member of Parliament I often found myself doing the job of a local councillor because that was what was expected of one, since that was what the Liberal Democrats were doing, rather than holding the Executive to account.

We also need to look at how our regional Governments are working, or not. Is it really desirable or justifiable that the House of Commons has 650 seats and an average of 105,000 electors per constituency, whereas the Scottish Parliament has 129 seats which, on average, each represents only 42,000 electors? The Senedd in Wales currently has 60 seats—although I see it is demanding to increase that number to 96—which, on average, each represents only 52,000 electors. The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 seats which each represents only 21,000 electors.

Do the differing systems of elections we have make sense anymore? The United Kingdom Parliament uses the first past the post system; the Scottish Parliament uses the additional member system, the Welsh Senedd similarly; and the Northern Ireland Assembly uses the single transferable vote. What about voting ages? Is it really sensible that in United Kingdom general elections, the voting age is 18; in Scotland, it is 16; in Wales, it is 16; and in Northern Ireland, it is 18? What is the rationale? What is the justification?

Of course, there are some good reasons behind the differences, not least in Northern Ireland, where the Assembly is designed to ensure a power-sharing agreement. In 2016 and 2017, power to reform the electoral system, the electoral franchise and the size of the devolved legislatures was devolved to Scotland and Wales, subject to the support of two-thirds of membership. There is an idea: the requirement of two-thirds of membership to alter them. The Northern Ireland Assembly cannot reform its own electoral system.

Yet here we are, now debating the removal of one small grouping from this House, who are legitimately here, without addressing the bigger pictures and anomalies that persist. Not least is the fact that, as has been mentioned, we have Bishops, but no other faith leaders, by right, to represent other faith communities. We have no one from the SNP, we have no one from Sinn Féin, and more ludicrously, given their current standing in the polls, we have no one from Reform. This House is not currently representative of anything, let alone the electorate. So by all means let us embrace change, but let us do so with an eye on the bigger picture. Let us convene this commission in partnership with the devolved Parliaments and, while we are at it, let us discuss the funding formula, which is ludicrously out of date; even Lord Barnett accepted that, shortly before his death. Then we can see what role a second Chamber can play, who it should be composed of and how many people should be in it—even, indeed, whether we need a bicameral system at all.

I have just recently seen that I have been invited—and I imagine other noble Lords had been invited too—by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, to a meeting next week to discuss what is termed English devolution. I imagine this will be a further look at local government reform—

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I hate to interrupt my noble friend, but I wonder if he has seen the flashing light.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

I am most grateful—I have reached the advisory time and I shall take your Lordships’ advice and begin my wind-up immediately. I imagine the meeting will be a look at local government, not the regional assemblies championed by Gordon Brown and Lord Prescott. We need to look at where want to have unitaries, district councils or county councils. Let us look at all this, but let us also look at a bigger review. The Government should look at Lords reform in a wider sense when we look at constitutional reform. It should not be done piecemeal, and I hope that they will rise to this occasion.