House of Lords Reform

Viscount Astor Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder how many times over the last century a noble Lord has started a speech by saying, “Reform of this Chamber is long overdue”, and how many times the Government Minister of the day has positively responded but the Government have then done little to implement any serious changes.

We will hear this evening from the Leader of the House about the proposed demise of the last remaining hereditary Peers. To be fair to the Labour Government, the Blair Government enacted a major change with the cull of hereditary Peers in 1999, leading to what was described as a transition period. Well, transition has lasted rather longer than intended, and that is the fault of not the hereditary Peers but the Labour and Conservative Governments.

Sadly, rather than serious reform, we will be offered a House that will be dependent on the whim and patronage of the Prime Minister. We all agree that there are too many Peers, but the Government have not come up with a solution. Has a retirement age of 80 been ditched, or a length of service of, say, 35 years? We do not know: the Government have not told us.

What is really important is that the Government had the opportunity to endorse the proposals put forward by Gordon Brown but quickly backed off, preferring to use this House as a repository for former Members of another place and those to whom it owes favours, following, I am afraid, the example of the last two Conservative Prime Ministers—I hope noble Lords remember that I said two, because I absolve my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton of any such behaviour.

The Brown plans offered a real reform. Following devolution, it is not sustainable to have a second Chamber that does not relate to and properly reflect the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We cannot have a second Chamber that relates largely to England—it should bring together the regions and nations of this country. We cannot have a second Chamber that does not include representatives of other faiths. Prayers should be said not just by the Bishops but by those representing other faiths.

A second Chamber could be constituted by election or, indeed, appointment. We need to look at what size any new Chamber should be, but that is a subsidiary question to what its role and powers should be. I follow my noble friend Lord Wakeham in saying that a constitutional convention should be put in place to look at all these issues, including how a reformed second Chamber relates in its powers to the primacy of the House of Commons. It is important to remember that without a second Chamber a Government can keep voting themselves into office.

It is often said that this House works in spite of its composition rather than because of it—that is true. I believe that the House of Lords is well regarded in this country as an important revising Chamber holding the Government to account. Any reform must ensure that that remains a core part of the House’s duty.

My time may be up in a year, so I want to address just a couple of points that have been made by noble Lords opposite. One of the main arguments against hereditary Peers is that no women are represented among our number. The fault for that lies just as much with the Government as it does with our side. The Labour Party, while in opposition or in government, has never supported any Bill that would give the right to the firstborn to succeed to a title. If it had, there would be many more mixed Members of the hereditary peerage.

The Government owe a duty to this House and to the country to announce what reforms they are considering, what reforms they now wish to impose, and what the timetable will be.

In the 50 years that I have sat in this House, it has changed. All ethnic communities are represented; nearly all religious denominations are represented, and noble Lords come from different parts of this country and from many different backgrounds. We have had in our ranks those who have been to jail, and perhaps a few who should have gone to jail. We are perhaps more representative of the nation than we ever realise.

Over the years, I have heard many good speeches from those who attend frequently and those who attend infrequently, and, occasionally, very bad speeches from those who attend all the time and never stop speaking. This House has a tendency to be pompous and often self-congratulatory. We often hear long speeches on foreign policy or important issues of the day, but I am afraid that our debates work only when they are narrowly focused. Too often, wide-ranging debates are for the benefit of the speaker and not the audience. I hope I have not fallen into that trap today.