House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships very long but the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and the rest of your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with the Bill that he proposes, and very much hope that it will not reach the statute book. The reason is simple: when the 1999 Act came before your Lordships, it was not going to pass through your Lordships’ House unless either the Parliament Act was used or your Lordships acquiesced in its passage, which they did not do until the deal that was negotiated came into being.

When the Bill first arrived in your Lordships’ House, there was no provision for by-elections at all; it sought just to remove every single hereditary Peer there and then without any provision for any exceptions except the two statutory exceptions to which the noble Lord referred. An undertaking was then given in the terms the noble Lord described—namely, that there would be 90 hereditary Peers plus the two exceptions, who would be topped up by by-elections as necessary, together with the 15 who are elected by all Members of your Lordships’ House. That undertaking was given to secure the passage of that Bill. It was an undertaking, in the words of the noble and learned Lord of the time,

“binding in honour on all those”,—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; col. 207.]

who gave their assent to it. I consider that that undertaking is still in place and will remain in place until such time as House of Lords reform is complete, when of course a wholly different circumstance will arise. Against that background, I am afraid I cannot agree to the Bill proposed by the noble Lord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating and educative debate for me, having heard from at least two of the people who contributed to that early 1999 agreement which we are debating. It is a great pleasure to congratulate my noble friend Lord Grocott on his Bill, and particularly on his introduction of it. On behalf of the Opposition, I give it the very warmest of welcomes. There are a thousand reasons for supporting it, not least the 1,000 sons of earlier honoured men who have in the past taken their seats here, not because of their own attributes, but because of those of their forebears. Today, there are none such in that the hereditaries now here, although they do indeed have to have honoured forebears, had also to be elected, or selected, by their peers in order to take or retain their seats.

Despite the fact that hereditaries are now elected, I am certain that in the 21st century there can be few who think that in future our legislators should be chosen by virtue of the deeds of their grandfathers—sometimes their great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers—rather than for what they themselves bring to the House. As has been said, the overwhelming majority of today’s hereditaries have shown their value to the House, and many would be here anyway as life Peers, given their accomplishments, so the time has come, not to say farewell to any of them, but simply to say that when they leave us, due to retirement or a higher calling, they should not be replaced.

The question asked was interesting because they would not necessarily—or at least it would be very unlikely—be replaced by their own son but by the son of another hereditary Peer. There would be a by-election and it would be someone else’s son who would select them, even though their son would be eligible to be put into the mix.

A number of speakers have said that we are too big and that our size must be reduced. Sadly, that plea fell on the very deaf ears of the former Prime Minister but as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lord Anderson reminded us, that plea has now been repeated by the Lord Speaker, who referred to the shame of the unelected House being larger than the democratically elected one. We see that trend is continuing as the Government seem intent on further reducing the size of the other House while increasing the size of this one. That has led to Charles Walker, the chair of the Procedure Committee in the other place, saying that the planned reduction of 50 MPs is unjustified,

“while the Lords continues to gorge itself on new arrivals”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/9/16; col. 502.]

That view was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. Of course, it is not we who are gorging ourselves; someone else is feeding the beak.

As my noble friend Lord Anderson and, in another way, my noble friend Lady Smith said, a seat in this noble House is a job, not an honour. We should do everything possible to make that clear to the Prime Minister as well as to the public. Surely as part of that call for a reduction in size, we should do something about this ourselves by taking this very modest measure to very slightly and slowly reduce our numbers.

Peers on this side of the House and other noble Lords who have spoken today would prefer greater changes discussed via a constitutional convention rather than by piecemeal measures, but the Government have obviously turned their face from this approach, so we believe the current Bill is appropriate. It is a tidy and measured reasonable step. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, it is incremental, and my noble friend Lord Haskel said that it is a small step to help this House more fully reflect today’s politics and today’s population.

We have heard different views. Some people say that incremental change is the way that this country works best, but others say that incremental change is the last thing we want. I guess I am with the conservatives. I like those small incremental stages, so I will take this Bill.

As my noble friend Lord Anderson said, we will, I assume, be moving to the QEII Centre. Surely we should not be asking the taxpayer to fund the move of more than 800 of us to that new venue. This is surely the time for us to take this small step.

I shall speak briefly on two further things. The first is the conversation—if I may put it that way—that took place between the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the role of this House as an independent voice against the Government. It is for that reason that I—and I think I am probably standing to the side of the Front Bench—do not support an elected House. My reason for supporting an appointed House is the one the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, enunciated, although, as I think I heard from behind me, I think that all life Peers take that responsibility very seriously. It is not just the hereditaries.

As the first woman in today’s debate, I shall make a little plea about women because it is not, on the whole, us who appear this way. The Minister has far more noble blood in her veins than I have, but I am certain that she is delighted that she is here because of her own abilities rather than because of anything else, and that is the way I hope anyone should take their seat here.

We wish this Bill well. We hope very much that the Government are not going to have a knee-jerk reaction and say, “It’s not the time. We’ve got Brexit and other things. It’s just not a priority”. If they say that, change will never happen, so I urge them to think very carefully and give time to allow this Bill to proceed.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, will she confirm that the Labour Party no longer honours the undertaking given in 1999?