House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Alex Burghart

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s bloodline getting to the House of Lords, I am sure it is only a matter of time before we see that.

In terms of the antics of the Opposition, I do not know whether the Conservative parliamentary party in the Commons speaks to peers, but it should talk to them about their behaviour on the Bill and other Bills that they have blocked and blocked and blocked. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is apparently spending time to come up with credible policies—no one will believe that the Conservative party is in favour of wholesale reform of the House of Lords.

It has been more than 25 years since Parliament agreed to end the hereditary route, with a supposedly temporary arrangement to retain 92 hereditary peers. It is almost 200 years since the Great Reform Act 1832, which took away the hold of the great aristocratic families, opening up the franchise and taking their presence in electoral politics from monopoly to anomaly. Nonetheless, the hereditary principle remains in our Parliament: sometimes as symbol of tradition, sometimes as obstacle to real reform—as Conservative peers have recently demonstrated.

There is a real opportunity today for the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He has protested several times about newly found passion for wholesale Lords reform—

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

No I haven’t.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am glad to hear that—there is the real voice of the Conservative party.

We have also therefore heard a lot of protestations that there is no attempt from the Conservative party to block this—we will see in the voting Lobby in due course whether the Conservatives actually seek to block further progress again. We talk about history and nostalgia, but this has in a real sense been used in the upper House to block Bills with a democratic mandate since last year.

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[Alex Burghart]

I am interested in my hon. Friend’s excellent point, and I hope the Minister will respond to that in his closing remarks.

What we will see is the removal of a group of public servants to make way for Labour placemen and Labour stooges—a huge act of patronage. I do not think anybody here believes that will improve scrutiny. It is just a numbers game. It is simply an attempt to give the Government a more compliant majority in the House of Lords, which they do not need. The Government will be able to get their business through the House of Lords anyway, so this is an unnecessary change that, despite the comments of the Paymaster General, belittles the contribution of the peers who already sit. It belittles their service, and it does not need to be done.

I turn to Lords amendment 2, on pay. I was interested by the Paymaster General’s response and listened closely to the detail he set out. There is an important principle here. We ask people to serve as Ministers of the Crown, and I think most of our constituents would agree that those Ministers should be paid. Members of the House of Lords are on no salary. They can collect their £361 a day if they turn up, but let us assume that one such Member is an unpaid Minister in the Home Office. They will find that on many working days they will be expected to travel—perhaps to Northern Ireland, Scotland or the north of England—and they will not be able to collect their allowance. On top of that, for taking on that important, unpaid job, they will also, for understandable reasons, have to give up their outside interests.

That means simply that many people in the House of Lords can afford to take ministerial jobs only if they are already of considerable means. I just do not think that the Paymaster General, in his heart of hearts, wants to see the perpetuation of that. If he does not agree with the Lords amendment, will he confirm whether the Government intend to bring forward comprehensive plans on that?

I will correct the Paymaster General on one small point of fact. He said that if Ministers in the House of Lords were paid, we would need to reduce the number of Ministers in the House of Lords as only a certain number of Ministers can be paid.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I will let the Paymaster General intervene if he wants to provide clarity on that technical point.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is a consequence of the interaction between the existing statute and this statute. I was not arguing for that; I was saying that that would be the effect of the Lords amendment.

[Alex Burghart]

With the amendment, what the Government could do is reduce the number of paid Ministers in the Commons and have more paid Ministers in the Lords. That would be possible under the Lords amendment.

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[Alex Burghart]

We are under no obligation to support Government legislation in the Commons.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Let me just repeat that point to the hon. Gentleman, because it is important. He claims to respect precedent and the rights of Parliament, but the position he takes in supporting Lords amendment 1 runs a coach and horses through that.

[Alex Burghart]

This is the Commons—we are not obliged to support you.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Fine, let me put it this way: the hon. Gentleman is supporting the position that his peers are taking, which is in breach of that convention.

I will give the hon. Gentleman another chance, because he is trying to put a defence up on that particular precedent. He supported the closing down of Parliament in 2019, and now he sits here lecturing me on precedent. I think it is best not to take any lectures from the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on that.

There was an opportunity for the Opposition this afternoon. They did not have to join in with the filibustering tactics that have been used, with tens of hours of debate on this very narrow Bill. The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster could today have not joined in, but he will lead his troops through the Lobby to continue to try to block these reforms. That is what this is all about. It is not, as he pretended, about trying to improve the Bill. It is not that those on the Tory Front Bench are secretly in favour of radical reform, and this is not radical enough for them. They are trying to wreck this Bill, and that is exactly what he will do as he goes through the Lobby with his troops later.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The manifesto was clear that the reform would be staged, and that this would be the immediate first step. The Government remain in favour of a House of Lords that is more representative of the nations and regions, and this is the first step. As the Leader of the House of Lords announced, a Select Committee will then look at retirement age, and indeed at participation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) made the point, which I repeated, that this is not a personal issue but an issue of principle. I know the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), welcomes the Bill as a first step, and she also spoke about the appointment process. Indeed, over recent months the Government have ensured that when people are selected for a place in the House of Lords there is now an explanation or citation. We always had a citation when people were awarded honours, but we did not have one for those nominated for a place in the House of Lords. That has now been changed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) set out powerfully that Lords amendment 1, which concerns the abolition of hereditary by-elections, has been put forward time and again by Lord Grocott, and on every single occasion it was blocked by the Conservatives. The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), a regular sparring partner of mine, accused me of being a bit unfair to the Conservatives in the 20th century. Life peerages were of course introduced in the late 1950s, but it is certainly the case that the Conservatives have blocked every opportunity to abolish the hereditary principle, and that is exactly what they are doing again.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) made a powerful speech about the central purpose of the Bill and the Government’s position on the amendments. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire made his characteristic contribution to the debate, and I would agree with the point he made about filibustering in the other place on this Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) made well the point that even after this change, the Conservatives will still be the largest single party in the House of Lords. I then come to the speech by the hon. Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) who seemed, I think, to be simultaneously arguing for maintaining the hereditary peers and for radical reform. When he talked about a parliamentarian with the “attention span” of a TikTok video, I thought he meant the shadow Justice Secretary for a minute. We have heard the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) make a comparison with North Korea, but the hon. Member for Windsor made a comparison with Iran. This Bill is quintessentially British. It is about British democracy. It is about putting an argument to the electorate last July, and then putting that into practice.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) made the powerful case that this is about principle, and about there not being a series of places in our legislature that are reserved for people by accident of birth. My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson), who I am sure the whole House will wish well for the Great North Run, made a powerful case for the abolition of the hereditary principle and the position of the Bill. I also say a real “thank you” to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who has made a powerful case for change throughout every stage of the passage of the Bill through the House of Commons.

This has been a perfectly reasonable debate—

[Alex Burghart]

rose—

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Before I conclude my remarks I will certainly give way.

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to the Paymaster General for giving way, as I feel that he is drawing to the end of his comments. One thing he has not discussed in his round-up of the debate is ministerial pay. I appreciate the remarks that he made at the start, and that he does not believe this is the right way or place to do that, but does he accept in principle that in future the Government should find a legal mechanism for ensuring that all Ministers of the Crown, regardless of the House in which they sit, are paid?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will just come to the other points that we are raising. I have made clear that Lords amendment 1 guts the purpose of the Bill, which is why the Government oppose it.

On the other amendments, first I am pleased with and thank the hon. Gentleman for his support on amendment 4, on the introduction of the power of attorney. I think that the whole House accepts that there are people who wish to retire, and that is a dignity that we should give them. We all appreciate that. On the other two points, I do not regard the creation of a new, separate honour as necessary or worthwhile—I had this exchange earlier with the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes). We already have an honours system that recognises outstanding contributions to our society. I think that we should maintain that link between the title and doing work in our legislature.

I understand the point that the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar has made a couple of times about ministerial pay and Ministers carrying out roles. The point that I would make to him, however, is that that requires an amendment. If he wants to make that argument and have a debate, he is perfectly entitled to do that, but the mechanism in the Bill will not have the impact that I think he is seeking to have in that respect.

To conclude—I am concluding not just this afternoon’s debate, but tens of hours of debate in the other place—we are moving towards a House of Lords that is fair, open and truly representative of the nation it serves, a House where expertise is recognised and not inherited, where policy is shaped by merit and not by bloodlines. I commend the Government’s position to the House.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

UK-EU Summit

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Alex Burghart

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I would say that if the terms of the deal are that the UK must pay to have access to that fund, we must ask very serious questions of our European allies about why we should have to contribute when we are already committed to their security. If the Government choose to go down that route, it is for the Government to explain why that should be the case.

The truth is that NATO must continue to be the cornerstone of our defence, but over the weekend there were reports in The Sunday Times that the EU might be inserted into our chain of command, which would be a very significant change.

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

Absolute nonsense.

[Alex Burghart]

From a sedentary position, the Paymaster General says that that is absolute nonsense. I am pleased to hear it, but the right hon. Gentleman has not yet had an opportunity to tell the House that. It was clear that someone in the Government, or within the EU, was briefing journalists over the weekend that this might be true. [Interruption.] I think the right hon. Gentleman needs to take responsibility for his special advisers. If there is to be a defence pact, it is for the Government to explain why it would make us safer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Alex Burghart

Thursday 24th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Will the Paymaster General give us an update on his negotiations with the European Union? He has not updated the House since the beginning of February, and there has been much speculation in the press. Will he take this opportunity to rule out dropping the right to annual quota negotiations on fishing?

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

We will negotiate in the interests of our fishers and understand and implement our marine protection rights. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand, I will not give a running commentary on the negotiations, but we are clear that we will negotiate in the national interest and in line with the manifesto that the Government, with 411 Members of Parliament, were elected on.

[Alex Burghart]

The whole House will have heard the Minister fail to rule that out.

It was good to hear the Prime Minister recently praise the Brexit freedom to regulate as we wish on artificial intelligence; will the Minister assure the House that EU AI rules will not be applied to Northern Ireland?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Again the hon. Gentleman comes with his questions on the reset. We have had an atmosphere of collegiality, and I want to join in by agreeing with the Leader of the Opposition that the previous Conservative Government left the EU without any plan for growth. That is absolutely true. The hon. Gentleman should follow the public debate on this issue. Major retailers including M&S, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Lidl all support this Government’s approach in the reset to get a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. The hon. Gentleman should back that approach; otherwise, people will rightly conclude that he and his party have learned nothing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Alex Burghart

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

First, we have a strong and proud tradition over centuries of free trade here in the United Kingdom, and we will continue to make the case for that. With regard to our specific trading relationship with the United States, the hon. Gentleman will have seen that, after conversations between the Prime Minister and the President in the Oval Office last Thursday, we wish to deepen our trading relationship with the United States. Specifically on Northern Ireland, I completely understand his point, and we will continue to monitor the impact of any such policy on Northern Ireland.

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to the Paymaster General for his response, but it sounds as though he has not yet had any conversations with his EU counterparts on the issue. I appreciate that he has a meeting on 19 May, but I am sure he will understand that tariffs may come much sooner than that. That being the case, will he undertake, first, to talk to his European counterparts and secondly, to come and give a statement to this House as soon as he has done so, so that we can understand that the Government are preparing for such an eventuality? Can he also make it clear to our friends in Europe that should trade and manufacturing be disrupted in Northern Ireland, we will not hesitate to use our powers under article 16 of the Windsor framework to protect businesses there?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

To reassure the hon. Gentleman, the Windsor framework taskforce is based in the Cabinet Office and I regularly discuss issues on Northern Ireland with my European counterparts. I can assure him that I will speak to Maro� �ef?ovi? on a number of occasions prior to 19 May. I hope the hon. Gentleman will take that reassurance. He should also be reassured that we will, of course, always act in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland.

UK-EU Relations

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Alex Burghart

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I thank the Paymaster General for advance sight of his statement, and I am grateful to him for coming to the House today to give us a rendition of the speech that he gave in Brussels on Tuesday—I am sure that it sounded even better accompanied by a cool glass of Belgian Chardonnay and the promise of a long continental lunch.

I note that the Paymaster General described the Prime Minister’s meeting with 27 EU leaders this week as being an “informal retreat”. An informal retreat indeed—that is, one suspects, how these words will come to characterise this Government’s negotiations with the EU. The last Conservative Government took us out of the EU and, despite the attempts of the Labour party to frustrate the will of the people, into an era of our being a sovereign nation, which has brought major benefits.

Under the Conservative Government, we secured more than 70 trade deals with other countries around the world and, since leaving the EU, UK trade has increased from about £1.04 trillion in 2015 to £1.74 trillion last year. We ended the supremacy of EU law, we delivered on our promise to leave the common fisheries policy, and we delivered the fastest vaccine roll-out in Europe. We turned a page, and it is vital that the Labour Government do not turn it back.

The Paymaster General talks of ruthless pragmatism in our negotiations with the EU. I wonder whether this will be the same ruthless pragmatism that is bringing us the Chagos deal.Will it be the same ruthless pragmatism that has caused the Government to spend £9.4 billion a year on above-inflation pay rises for unionised sectors without any promise of reform? Perhaps it is the same ruthless pragmatism that saw the collapse of the £450 million AstraZeneca deal last week. When Labour negotiates, our country loses.

I have a great deal of respect for the Paymaster General—I hope he will do better than his friends and colleagues. He has talked to us about security, safety and prosperity—all very nice, but enough of the platitudes, let us talk about the plan. What do the Government actually want from the negotiations? What are the tangible gains they hope to make, and what are their red lines? We have heard about the customs union and a single market, but he knows that that is not enough. He says the Government “are not hitting rewind”, but we know the Government are open to dynamic alignment and a role for the European Court of Justice because he has twice declined to rule that out in this House. Going back to the ECJ for GB would be completely unacceptable.

On defence, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the NATO Secretary-General’s plea to step up and project strength. Is that what the Government will do? I know the Secretary-General has been asking European countries for a marked increase in defence spending. What is the Government’s response to that? Will he confirm that NATO remains the cornerstone of our defence arrangements?

There was no mention of fish. A word of advice to the right hon. Gentleman: fish are very important, and they will be very important in these negotiations. What is the Government’s position? Will he commit to there being no reduction in our current fishing rights? It is reported that our friends and allies in the French Republic have said that nothing can be negotiated until fish are negotiated. Will he confirm that he has told them firmly and politely, “Non”?

There is no mention of free movement. I noticed the other day that the Home Secretary ruled out a youth mobility scheme. Is that Government policy or was that just the Home Office freelancing? I ask because last week in Westminster Hall the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be pretty open to the idea. What is the Government’s position?

On the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention—PEM—a Minister told the “Today” programme on 23 January that the Government were “not seeking” to join PEM. Later that day, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Government

“do not currently have any plans to join PEM”.—[Official Report, 23 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 1091.]

On 26 January, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government were considering joining PEM, but then on 3 February, the right hon. Gentleman said in answer to a written question from the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) that the Government

“do not currently have any plans”.

I would be grateful if he could tell us what the Government’s position is, and if he cannot, perhaps he would be good enough just to make up another one.

The Opposition believe there should be no backsliding on free movement or compulsory asylum transfers. We believe that no new money should be paid to the EU. We believe that no reduction in our current fishing rights should be given away. We believe in no rule-taking, dynamic alignment or European Court jurisdiction. We believe in no compromise on the primacy of NATO as the cornerstone of European security. That is what the Opposition believe; it is time for the Government to tell us what they believe. A future Government will not be bound by a bad Labour deal.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I thank the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for his contribution. Of course NATO remains the cornerstone of our security; that has been a cross-party position for decades. He asks about plans and red lines. I refer him to our manifesto, which was put to the people last year, that contains those clear red lines of no return to freedom of movement, the single market or the customs union. He can see in that examples of what the Government are seeking to negotiate.

The hon. Gentleman talks about negotiating international agreements. There are many people from whom I would take advice about international agreements, but I hope the House will forgive me if the Conservatives—the party that managed to send hundreds of millions of pounds to Rwanda and all they got in return was sending some volunteers and most of their Home Secretaries there—are not at the front of the queue for giving advice on how to negotiate international agreements.

I give some credit to the Leader of the Opposition, who strikes a markedly different tone on this issue from that struck by the hon. Gentleman today. She admits freely that the last Government left without a plan for growth, and that, frankly, they ended up making it up as they went along. I was surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not begin his remarks by repeating that apology. Perhaps he has a different view than the one taken by his leader.

The hon. Gentleman talks about the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but he was part of a Government who negotiated a role for the European Court of Justice in the Windsor framework. He talks about standards. This Government are committed to the highest standards, whether that is on product safety, employment rights or consumer rights. We believe in a race to the top on standards, not the race to the bottom that would be the dream of the Conservatives.

As the Government move forward, our test is the national interest. It is about making Britain safer, more secure and more prosperous. There is another test for the Leader of the Opposition, however. I see that she has put out a social media video about tests, which is worth a couple of minutes for mild entertainment if nothing else. The test for her is whether she will face down the ideologues in her party. Is she going to show some political courage and back the national interest, or is she just going to back down in the face of the ideologues in her party? On the basis of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, I am not optimistic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Alex Burghart

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Yesterday in Davos, Mr Šefčovič suggested that the UK and the EU were talking about dynamic alignment. As the Paymaster General will be aware, that is, if true, a very significant step. Will he be clear with the House: is dynamic alignment on the table?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have to give the hon. Gentleman top marks for audacity. I do not know whether Conservative MPs have heard, but a week ago, the Leader of the Opposition gave her new year speech, and, as I am sure they know, we listened to it extremely carefully. Do they know what she said about previous EU-UK negotiations? She said that the Conservative Government were engaging in them

“before we had a plan for growth outside the EU… These mistakes were made because we told people what they wanted to hear first and then tried to work it out later.”

Why doesn’t the—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we are in danger—[Interruption.] I am not going to sit down, Minister. [Interruption.] Thank you. We have a lot of questions to get through. If you want to make a statement on that in future, I would welcome it.

[Alex Burghart]

I would welcome that, too, Mr Speaker, because the right hon. Gentleman was not answering my question—just as he did not answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), and just as his Department is not answering questions of any hue at the moment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) made clear. It comes to something when Mr Šefčovič is a better guide to what is going on than the British Government. If the Government are committed to dynamic alignment, that is a significant step, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, because it could bring the European Court of Justice back into having jurisdiction over the United Kingdom. So, for the avoidance of doubt, will he rule out the ECJ having jurisdiction over the UK in any regard in the future?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am astonished by the question, because the hon. Gentleman is also the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, and will know the role that the European Court of Justice plays in the Windsor framework. Turning to his question about the negotiations, we have set out our red lines in the manifesto, and have set out examples of things that we are seeking to negotiate—that is already there.

The Leader of the Opposition was apologising last week for the conduct of the Conservative party in its relationship with the EU. Why is the hon. Gentleman not starting with an apology, or did he just not get the memo from his leader?