House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Mark Ferguson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

I turn now to Lords amendment 1. The House of Lords has, understandably, introduced an amendment that would keep the existing hereditary peers in place. We have heard already from my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) how the Labour party has reneged on the deal that it struck in the late ’90s that was going to keep a small number of hereditary peers in place until such a time as it brought forward a comprehensive constitutional reform package, which this clearly is not.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

This is a fascinating return to the ’90s—like much about the Conservative party—but I think the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has missed the fact that there was an election last year in which the Labour party clearly won a mandate to deliver the removal of hereditary peers. What may or may not have been discussed in the 1990s is for the birds. There was an election. We won that election. We said we were going to do this. Let’s get on with it.

[Alex Burghart]

I fully accept that the Labour party has changed its mind, but in doing so it has reneged on the deal that it struck in the late ’90s. Let us be clear about what is happening. The Labour Government are now seeking to remove a whole group of public servants who have done nothing wrong—

[Mark Ferguson]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Alex Burghart]

Sit down. Those public servants are in the Lords because the last Labour Government put them there as part of the deal that it struck on long-term constitutional change.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

Frankly, I do not agree with that principle. As I said in an intervention on the Minister, this will leave the monarchy wholly exposed as the only person who holds his office by reason of hereditary principle.

[Mark Ferguson]

Will the Father of the House give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I will make a bit of progress.

I know the Minister will say that the monarchy is popular—which it is—and that it does not have political power, but it has infinitely more influence than any hereditary peer. I do not think we should accept that the hereditary principle is entirely wrong. Even if we accept that and say it is quite wrong that somebody should be called an hereditary peer, which I suspect is a lot of the problem, why do we not just make all the existing hereditary peers—who, as we have heard, are not stately home owners; they are dedicated public servants, with scores of them having worked in Parliament for years—life peers? Given that they are dedicated public servants, if we hate the fact that they are called hereditary peers, why not have an evolutionary form and call them life peers? But we are not doing that.

Lords amendment 1, tabled by my party in the other place, is entirely sensible. Rather than kicking people out in a flash, the hereditary peers—which we could now call life peers, if it is the name that makes people unhappy—could simply fade away. There is a lot of merit in old people gradually fading away rather than dying.

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[Mark Ferguson]

I thank the Father of the House for giving way. He makes a compelling point about other countries. Would he care to name some other countries that have people sitting in their legislature, able to introduce and vote on legislation, entirely by dint of their parentage? For the life of me, I cannot think of many examples.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course, nothing in our constitution is perfect. We would not be starting here—we accept that. We are just saying that this is a group of dedicated public servants who have done nothing wrong, and we are simply asking that they should be allowed to carry on their work, rather than be kicked out primarily because they are from Opposition parties.

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[Jack Rankin]

My hon. Friend’s point is right, and I thank him for it.

We walk through the Division lobbies, directed by the Whips, often having had no time, because of the impossible juggling act, to develop real knowledge of the topic in question or to think through properly the implications. Some of the stuff that leaves this place with a massive majority might have well been written in crayon. Thank God for the other place. Do not remove long-serving public servants and outstanding legislators. Do not pick at the threads of our constitution. The other place is one of the parts of our constitution which works best. We should retain Lords amendment 1 and 8.

I talked of a tension, a conflict in my thinking. I have tried to articulate a deeply conservative instinct, but I also feel excitement, as I will explain. My view is that the British state is way off course, dangerously off course. It needs deep and radical change. To take one issue, immigration, almost nothing is now too radical to consider. Whether we look at the asylum system or legal migration, the radical change that the country needs will be of significant scale. None of that will be possible in the Blairite constitutional straitjacket that is at direct odds with our historic constitution.

[Mark Ferguson]

That is a fascinating argument. The hon. Gentleman has argued in favour of the Lords for their restraint, and now he is arguing in favour of the Lords because they allow radicalism. That does not make any sense.

[Jack Rankin]

That is the tension that I am trying to bring out. Who would seek to frustrate such an agenda—the Lords might, in their current form. I find it exciting—and this is a warning—that a majority in this House, gained from 33.7% of the vote on a 59.7% turnout, which is almost exactly 20% of the adults in this country, can remove their opposition from the other place. Labour Members may not agree with the hereditary principle, but who else does not get elected in the other place and cannot be removed by elections? It is the life peers. I say honestly, the lack of respect you might have for a millennia-old principle, I have for a lot of the backgrounds—

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[Kevin Bonavia]

I agree wholeheartedly with the principle of a check on this place. However, that check must come with due wisdom and expertise. We have heard from the Conservative Benches about those centuries of wisdom, but wisdom cannot simply be passed down genetically to people in the other place today. Surely we need people in the other place who have expertise and are there on merit, not because of who their ancestors were.

Lords amendment 1 seeks to amend the 1999 compromise of by-elections to replace vacant hereditary peers by allowing the cohort of hereditary seats to gradually reduce by natural departure. As my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General has said, that amendment would effectively delay our manifesto commitment to end the hereditary element in the other place for many years to come.

As I said earlier, this is about not individuals or personalities but ensuring that our institutions reflect the values of our modern democracy. I have seen at first hand the important role of the second Chamber in scrutinising legislation and improving the quality of lawmaking, but that role must be based on merit and public service, not on birthright. If anyone watching today’s debate is a hereditary peer—I see none up in the Gallery—and is dismayed at the prospect of no longer being able to contribute to the work of the other place, I say to them: do not be downhearted. Anyone in principle, including ex-hereditary peers, should have the ability to serve as a parliamentarian if they are willing and able to do the necessary work—and work is the point here.

Doing the necessary work brings me to Lords amendment 3, which would effectively bring about a new tradition of creating life peerages as honours in name only, with no work involved. What on earth is the use of that? There are plenty of other honours, as we have heard, that His Majesty can bestow that would show due public recognition for services rendered to this country. The other place is not and should not be used as an honours board. It should be a working and effective part of our legislature—our Parliament.

I believe that any parliamentarian comes to this building to do the work, to hold or be held to account, to raise issues that matter to the wider country and to pass good and workable laws. When I was elected on that expectation by my constituents in Stevenage, that was the pledge I promised to uphold. Although Members of the other place do not have expectations from constituents, I believe there is an expectation from the public as a whole that they are there to do the work of good parliamentarians. An empty life peerage title would only take away from that public expectation.

These amendments complicate what is and should be a simple task before us: to deliver—finally—on ending the principle of hereditary peerages and ensure that the other place is a working place in a Parliament that works for all the people.

[Mark Ferguson]

This has been a suitably fascinating debate. I do not plan to speak for too long, because the points have already been well made. We have had 10 hours here and 52 flippin’ hours in the House of Lords on this concise, four-clause Bill, and now we have a number of amendments. I will address Lords amendments 1 and 2.

Lords amendment 1 is fairly straightforward up and down. We know what it is. It is a wrecking amendment, pure and simple. It is nothing more than an amendment designed to preserve the hereditary principle in the House of Lords—a principle that is an outdated anachronism that has no place in 2025 or any modern democracy. The only other comparable democracy is Lesotho. I do not know much about Lesotho, but I would quite like not to share this unenviable record with the good people of Lesotho for any longer.

The point has been made that if we do not want the hereditary principle in the House of Lords, perhaps that means that we no longer want the monarchy. Nothing could be further from the truth. As all Members in this place did, I swore an oath of allegiance to the King. I have not always been ardent monarchist, but I support a constitutional monarchy, and one of the many reasons I do is because the monarch has absolutely no role in introducing laws, in amending laws or in voting on laws. The monarch’s role is quite clear and simple: Royal Assent. They do not obstruct the work of this place—rightly so—and yet we have heard so many times today about the guerilla warfare that is being led in the other place against numerous pieces of legislation in retribution against this simple removal of an anachronism.

That is not what the King does. Frankly, it is when monarchs have sought to obstruct this House that references to Cromwell are relevant. That is not what the Bill does; it is about removing the hereditary principle from the legislature that develops, scrutinises and delivers legislation. The King may sign it—that is his role.

[Sir John Hayes]

The point has been repeatedly made from the Government Benches that this is a matter of principle and that hereditary power is unacceptable. Now, the hon. Member is right that the King has no role in introducing legislation, and so on and so forth, but the King does have immense political influence. Which Labour Back Bencher meets the Prime Minister weekly to discuss the affairs of state?

[Sir John Hayes]

Madam Deputy Speaker, the king of Stoke!

Which Labour Back Bencher receives a regular report from the Whips on the proceedings of this House? That is what the King has. The King rightly has powers, and he derives his power by birth.

[Mark Ferguson]

I delighted to inform the right hon. Member about the parliamentary Labour party’s Back-Bench committee, which meets the Prime Minister weekly when Parliament is sitting. I see at least one of my hon. Friends from the committee here—[Interruption.] In fact, there are two here. Staffordshire is well represented at the moment on the committee, and that is quite right—oatcakes all round for them, and of course for the Prime Minister.

[Adam Jogee]

rose—

[Mark Ferguson]

I will happily take a point in a second from my hon. Friend, which I presume will be on the Lords amendment and not on oatcakes, but I wish to respond fully to the point made by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) before I got so distracted. I apologise for that self-distraction, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The role of the Lords in our legislature is quite clear, as is the role of the monarch. In fact, I spoke this morning to students from Emmanuel college in my constituency about the three distinct parts of our Parliament: this place, the other place and, of course, the monarch. But the principle under discussion is the ability to introduce, amend or vote on legislation. The King does none of those, so I see no contradiction on that important point of principle.

I will now happily accept an intervention.

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, although the moment has passed slightly. I wanted to thank him for acknowledging the work of the PLP Back-Bench committee. I will happily bring him some oatcakes from home on Monday morning.

[Mark Ferguson]

I thank my hon. Friend, although I do not think that will help me with my diet. However, I am doing the great north run on Sunday so I will probably need the calories.

I am happy that we are having the debate, but I am somewhat surprised by its tenor, which runs contrary to the Salisbury convention—its correct name, of course, is the Salisbury-Addison convention; we too often neglect the Labour Member of that important duopoly. It has been surprising—particularly so on Second Reading, when the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), led for the Opposition—that there has not been a more straightforward argument from the Opposition in favour of the hereditary principle, because it seems fairly clear that that is what they are arguing for.

I dare say there is a—probably dwindling—proportion of the electorate who wish to see the hereditary principle enshrined within those crucial aspects of our legislature in the scope of our discussions, but no Opposition Members appear willing to make that argument. I am afraid it is an act of constitutional contortion for them to say they merely wish to allow some people to serve out their time. If that is the case, why do we have elections? Many wonderful public servants on both sides of the House lost their seats at the last election; but in this place we believe that, at the will of the people, any of us could be gone—and that is quite right.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

The hon. Member is making the point that any of us should be able to go, and I agree. Should that not be the case for all parliamentarians and not just those in this House?

[Mark Ferguson]

My long-standing views on reform of our Parliament can be looked up by any Member if they so wish. I very much welcomed, both on Second Reading and from the Front Bench today, the comments on the future reform of the Lords and what that might look like. However, I dare say to the hon. Gentleman that we might agree on some specific aspects more than he imagines.

There has not been much discussion of Lords amendment 2, on Ministers’ pay. I welcome the Conservative party’s stout defence of working people and of ensuring that people are paid what they are owed. We have also heard references to equalities law from the Opposition Benches, and I welcome that. I just think it is such as a shame that it is only being applied specifically and uniquely to hereditary peers.

As Conservative Members well know, there is a limit on the number of Ministers who can be paid. I think that is right and I do not believe that now is the right time to expand the cost of our politics with more paid Ministers. However, if the Conservative party believes, genuinely and deep down in its soul, that it needed to have more paid Ministers, it had 14 years of Government in which it could have done that, rather than tacking it on as a distraction from the issue at hand here, which is incrementally but crucially reforming our constitution.

I support the Government’s position on all the amendments. Let us get on with this. We have had 62 hours of debate—and counting. Let us crack on. It has been 1,100 years; I think it is time to cut it short.