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

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, as many noble Lords may understand, I am not in favour of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I suggest that that is no surprise, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, pointed out a few moments ago.

The present arrangements, as several noble Lords have said, were agreed in 1999, to last not indefinitely but only until House of Lords reform was complete. I accept that the present size of your Lordships’ House is excessive but the problem is too many life Peers, not too many hereditary Peers. Back in 1999, 600 hereditary Peers left on a single day, and their numbers have remained firmly at 92 since then.

I suggest that the responsibility for the appointment of life Peers should be taken from the Prime Minister and vested in a new independent statutory body whose decisions would be binding. A small number of categories, such as religious leaders, could perhaps be included. Such a system would mark the completion of House of Lords reform and thus, of course, the end of hereditary Peer by-elections. That new appointments body could be given numerical responsibility—for example, by the method of two out, one in—to create a House of a more manageable size.

In 1215 His late Majesty King John put his signature to Magna Carta at Runnymede, thus creating democracy. Who was it who so persuaded him? They were described as the nobles, the barons and the bishops. Today we call them the House of Lords. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will not press his Bill.