House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar]

93: Clause 2, page 1, line 8, at end insert—
“(3) Any peerage claim is to be made to His Majesty in Council.(4) A claim under this section must be made in accordance with such rules as His Majesty may by Order in Council prescribe. (5) Section 3 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833 (reference to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of appeals to His Majesty in Council) applies to a claim under this section as it applies to an appeal to His Majesty in Council from a court.(6) The Judicial Committee may require an applicant to give such security for the costs of the proceedings as the Judicial Committee may direct.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to clarify the future of claims to a hereditary peerage as originally drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 93 would put the process for dealing with peerage claims into the hands of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. When the Bill was published, many people noted that Clause 2 abolishes the role of the House of Lords in peerage claims, expressly including claims to peerages that are in abeyance. However, it does not replace that system; in other words, the clause abolishes but does not also replace.

I appreciate that, three weeks ago in this Committee, the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, whom I am delighted to see here, appeared somewhat surprised to find that there are many Peers who do not sit in your Lordships’ House but are Peers none the less. That is a fact. We must have an effective system in place to determine peerage claims.

The Explanatory Notes to the Bill set out how this process is to work in future. I will quote them, because this is short and clear:

“As well as removing the final link between hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords, the Bill also abolishes the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in hereditary peerage claims. The intention is that: a. any complex or disputed peerage claims that would have otherwise been considered by the House of Lords will instead be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by way of section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833; and b. claimants to a peerage of Ireland will no longer petition the House of Lords to confirm their succession”.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 93A (to Amendment 93) withdrawn.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will of course withdraw the amendment. Before I do, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for answering the question about the Irish peerages. I will look very carefully at what he said in response to the rest.

I had a wry smile when the noble and learned Lord said that it is unnecessary to duplicate legislation. I started off with that aim as well and I ended up with the Pet Abduction Act 2024. It is all very well when you are faced with a lawyer across the Dispatch Box here, but when you are faced with a group from the House of Commons with the wind in their sails, it may be more difficult to hold to that. I used to tell people that the statute book was not a form of semaphore to send signals, but that often fell on deaf ears.

I am grateful for the support I had en passant from my noble friend Lord Northbrook. Respectfully, I fundamentally disagree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham. There is an interesting—by which commercial lawyers normally mean expensive—legal question raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, as to whether a peerage is a matter of property or not. Quite beyond that, we do not want these cases starting in the county court and going all the way up. We need somewhere to resolve them, and the Privy Council is the obvious place. It resolves other sorts of disputes to do with universities and things like that. It would be a bit of fun for it, in between all the other difficult jurisdictional work that it does. My noble friend Lord Moynihan gave a good example of a disputed peerage.

My answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—who was obviously satisfied with the Attorney-General’s answer, because she has now gone—was going to be slightly different. I was going to encourage the noble Baroness to stay for groups 5 and 7, when the questions of commencement and when we will have the last hereditary Peer will be before the Committee. I was not going to give an answer now, so that she would stay and listen to the debates on those groups. I hope that she comes back.

On a more serious note, if there are discussions, as we have heard, through the usual channels on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, the answer given might be that it will be when one of the current hereditary Peers in the House reaches the ripe old age of 120. Subject to that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 93 withdrawn.