House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Shaun Davies and Simon Hoare

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Before I begin my remarks, I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I have a meeting with a Minister at the Department of Health a little later, so I will have to slip out for part of the debate.

I slightly hesitate to say this in the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), because I would love to describe myself as a romantic old Tory who believes in the Peel dictum that we should keep the best of what we have and reform only where necessary. However, I am afraid that that ship has probably sailed and we are now full steam ahead into the 21st century, and there is much in what the Paymaster General said to support the principle that he seeks to advance. In a modern legislature, can we justify—beyond its being an attractive traditional anachronism—having 92 or whatever hereditary peers?

It is frankly nigh on impossible to make that argument, apart from as a romantic attachment, although my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) gave it his best shot. He made some very important points, particularly in quoting Burke. I have to say that I am distressed to hear that, when our leadership issues have been settled, he will be leaving the Front Bench—he was just starting to show such promise, and I am sure great things beckoned. He is a great mate, and he will be much missed.

I am afraid that the argument the Minister deployed is not the best one or what I was expecting to hear him say. He is an accomplished author: he has written a book on Nye Bevan, an award-winning book on Harold Wilson and a book about Attlee. He may possibly be able to hear those heroes of his spinning in their graves, because his approach to Lords reform would translate as Wilson having a “lukewarm heat of technology”, Attlee saying, “Well, I’ve created a little bit of a welfare state, and I think we’ll just pause there for 30 years and see how that goes, because some people may not like it”, or Nye Bevan saying, “Do you know, I’ve opened a cottage hospital in Cwmbran, and that’s quite enough: let’s just pause for a moment and see how that works.” If you are going to do it, do it!

I make this point with the greatest respect and politeness, because I admire the right hon. Gentleman enormously. After 14 years in opposition, decades since Harold Wilson and over a century since Lloyd George’s price list of viscountcies—and heaven knows what else when he was selling peerages to try to keep the old Liberal party in power—the right hon. Gentleman says, in a tantalising Lords reform version of the dance of the seven veils, “I want to show you this little bit of what we’re going to do, and there’s more to come after the interval, but we don’t how long the interval will be.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) is a former Chief Whip, so he knows full well the pressures on legislative time, and the Cabinet Office has done well to secure a legislative slot so early in the Parliament to deliver some constitutional change and reform. What a missed open goal to deliver the things that most of us—including, I think, the right hon. Gentleman—would like to see.

The right hon. Gentleman—I say this as a fellow boy from south Wales—told us that there is nothing better than when we see men and women of good will who wish to take part in our national life having the opportunity to do so. That is what we all want to see—a socially mobile, inclusive, engaged democracy—if for no other reason than that it means that, through that mechanism, we can destroy and put away those on the extremes, who only ever fill the vacuum when those women and men of good will do not step up to the plate.

Removing the 92 hereditary peers will still leave appointment to the Lords up to patronage—being a great mate of a party leader. Across the House we should be absolutely frank about how all party leaders all of the time have used the House of Lords as a way of getting rid of the awkward, the bed blockers or whoever. I have to say to Labour Members that, while we should all beware of Greeks bearing gifts—I can say that as somebody who is a quarter Greek—they should beware of a Labour Chief Whip offering them a peerage, because the Government will change the age qualification. It is the unkindest retirement present for Margaret Beckett, John Spellar and others. They said, “Please go to the House of Lords and make way for a new, young, able thruster,” and then, “Oh, we’re frightfully sorry, but you’re now too old to take your seat.”

[Shaun Davies]

To damage the street cred of us both, I am very fond of the hon. Member, as he knows—we go back a long way—but does he agree with me that perfection should not be the enemy of the good, and he should vote for this measure as a down payment on future reforms?

[Simon Hoare]

I say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I nearly called my hon. Friend because he is a friend, that I am more than likely to vote for this Bill on Second Reading. I possibly should have told my Whip about that beforehand—there is my peerage gone. Notwithstanding the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) is one of my oldest and dearest friends, I must say that his reasoned amendment seems to have been written more because of the need to write something, rather than actually to make a case to persuade, which is entirely atypical of the way he usually works.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge made the important point—I do hope that those on the Treasury Bench and the Government Whips have listened—that this is an opportunity to consider proper amendments to make this a more material exercise.

We live, thank God—I say this as a Roman Catholic—in a multicultural, multi-religious society. We have an established church, and I do not think anybody would advocate for its disestablishment at this stage. However, it is surely an anachronism, just because of the sees to which they have been appointed, for the Archbishop of Canterbury and others to sit as part of the legislature. The only other country that has clerics in such a position by dint of office is Iran, which I suggest is not a country that we should seek to emulate very much. Let us have a faith Bench or faith Benches, but let those Benches be of mixed faiths and truly representative of the faith groups doing so much good in our country.

A number of the hereditary peers have been doing sterling work. I think, in particular, of my noble Friend The Earl Howe and His Grace the Duke of Wellington, whom Labour Members were praying in aid just a few months ago, of course, when His Grace was leading the campaign against the then Government to improve water quality and sewerage. I suggest that his expertise in and knowledge of water quality in chalk streams and so forth should not be lost.

I do take on board the sincerity that the Minister claims—this is not a personal thing or a class war; it is a matter of principle. I think the House gets him on that. I do not think he needs to make that point any more. But I do hope that there may be an opportunity for a supernumerary list outside the normal leaders’ nominations —birthday or new year honours—so that those hereditaries who wish to continue their service, and not all will, can have conferred upon them a life peerage. That would make good much of what the Minister has said with regard to his principal motivation and that this is not a personal thing.