House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mobarik (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for their support.

My amendment proposes the nomination of life peerages equivalent to the number of hereditary Peers, split proportionally between the parties and groups affected. I shall speak to the detail of it shortly. I came to this conclusion after a number of conversations and considerable thought on how to resolve this matter in a way that reflects the disposition of our House: of respect, courtesy and consideration towards our colleagues —something that one should expect in any place of work.

When I spoke at Second Reading, I expressed the view that current hereditary Peers should be awarded life peerages if this Bill removes their ability to sit in this House as hereditary Peers. It was a wish to protect valued and respected colleagues from eviction from this House, prompted, as I said then, by a feeling that there may be an element of discrimination or prejudice at play. I hope, having been sensitive to such things from a young age and from experience, that I will always stand up to prejudice no matter from where it comes or to whom it is directed. It is simply a principle that I wish to uphold.

Having listened carefully to the debates on this Bill over these last weeks, I am still trying to understand why it is being brought forward by the Government when there are so many other more pressing issues for them to address. Nevertheless, if noble Lords will indulge me with their attention for a little longer, I will share some more background to this amendment.

I came to this House just over a decade ago and was introduced by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, a pre-eminent hereditary Peer and former Leader of this House. I knew my noble friend from serving on the Strathclyde commission, which he so ably chaired, and was hugely honoured that he agreed to be one of my supporters.

During my first few weeks here, my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie, another hereditary Peer, became my mentor. I do not think there could have been anyone kinder and more conscientious. He did everything he could to ensure that I understood the workings of your Lordships’ House. Several months on, my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, then Chief Whip, asked whether I would consider being a party Whip. I said yes. My group, or flock as we called them, had something in common—they were all Scots, and a fair number of them were hereditary Peers.

If anyone is concerned about representation of the regions, Scotland is very well represented by our hereditaries. I will mention just a few of those in my old flock. My noble friend Lord Lindsay currently serves on our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, is president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, and has been president of the National Trust of Scotland and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. My noble friend Lord Caithness, the chief of Clan Sinclair, currently serves on our procedure committee and the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee. He has also been a Minister of State in no less than five government departments: the Department for Transport, the Home Office, the Department of the Environment, His Majesty’s Treasury and the Foreign Office. My noble friend Lord Dundee is the royal standard-bearer for Scotland. He is a farmer who runs two charitable trusts that he founded, and he has served for many years on the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. He has also been a Government Whip and government spokesman for education, Scottish affairs, home affairs and energy. All of them made me feel so welcome and showed me the utmost respect and kindness. I could not have asked for better colleagues looking out for me when I joined this House.

What I am trying to say is that the people affected by this Bill are our friends. Not only that: they are distinguished parliamentarians who contribute so much to this House to which we all belong.

A more recent colleague and friend of mine in this House is my noble friend Lord Minto. He has served as a Minister of State in the Department for Business and Trade and as Minister of State for Defence—both unpaid positions, might I add—and we have regular catch-ups over tea. On our very first meeting, my noble friend and I discovered some common threads: the family of a very close friend of my late father, an eminent gentlemen by the name of Shaharyar Khan, a former ambassador of Pakistan to the United Kingdom, had a strong connection to my noble friend’s grandfather. Historical photographs and information were shared, but that is where the cozy backstory ends.

My noble friend’s grandfather was the viceroy of pre-partition India. I have rather a dim view of empire, as noble Lords would expect, but I do not choose to see my noble friend through the lens of history. When we enter this place, those strange concepts of class and privilege are left outside. We are here as equals—as Peers. The clue is in the name but, to be clear, I do not argue for the hereditary principle. It belongs in the century before last. The point is that if we do not believe that someone should become a Member of this House because of who their parents were, surely it is not right to remove people from this House because of who their parents were. With that in mind, I come to my amendment.

I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House—the Leader of our whole House—knows that I hold her and her Front-Bench team in the highest esteem. She has told us that this Bill is not a cunning attempt at gerrymandering, and we should believe her. My amendment follows on from that understanding. If this Bill is not about gerrymandering then on the day that it passes into law, which it will, as it was a manifesto commitment, the Prime Minister should at that point recommend to His Majesty that life peerages be granted to replace the number of hereditary Peers who are to be lost.

It would be up to the leaders of the parties in the House of Lords or, in the case of the Cross-Bench Peers HOLAC, to replace the hereditary Peers they have lost with life Peers. There would be no back-room deals, a term used more than once during these debates; let us just be transparent. Here are the numbers lost and they should be replaced. If we feel that some, even most, of our hereditary Peers are worthy of being appointed as life Peers, then there really should be no objection; and where there are hereditaries who do not attend the House or who intend to retire, this will be a good opportunity to replace them with fresh talent. Some more women on these Benches would be a good idea.

In all cases, qualification for this House can and should be based on life experience, knowledge, commitment and a quality not often mentioned: wisdom. I really hope that we can overcome the prejudices that I fear I am detecting. We should judge each other on what we do and say, rather than on who we are and where we come from. We should respect the huge contributions that so many hereditary Peers have made over the years. We should allow for a smooth and fair transition to the next stage of our illustrious history, in readiness for the challenges and opportunities of a new and exciting age, by bringing with us the best of our talent and recruiting what more we need. I believe that my amendment addresses all these points, and I beg to move.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, with regret, I oppose this amendment, despite the fact that I often agree with some of the views of some of its proposers. It seems to me to have at least three quite serious objections.

First, it does absolutely nothing to reduce the numbers in this Chamber—quite the reverse. Together with the numbers already appointed and those likely to be appointed, we will greatly increase the size of this House well beyond the 600 which has often been recommended as desirable.

Secondly and differently, it greatly enhances the influence of party leaders and I really do not want to do that. What if Mr Johnson was the leader of the Conservative Party now? I certainly would not want to give him these unlimited powers.

Lastly, and much the same, it does not address the concerns frequently expressed in this Committee as to the lack of any proper criteria to ensure that the individuals concerned are fit and proper persons or, for that matter, will participate fully in the business of this House. While I can understand the reasons that it is put forward, I think it is a thoroughly bad amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I profoundly disagree, almost for the first time, with the noble Viscount. I put my name to this amendment, and I want to say to the Committee that I am concerned, as he clearly is, about the size of the House. We are the second largest second Chamber, apart from China, and 237 Members of this House have attended less than 20% of the time they should, of which 127 have attended less than 10% of that time. We have leave of absence, and one Peer has had 8.5 years of leave of absence, while others have had several years but remain on the list of Peers who could attend at any time. We now have a system for Peers who do not do anything and do not attend: they could be asked to leave. So far, only 16 have been asked to leave, despite the numbers who really do not attend and do not contribute.

For comparison, we can look at the hereditary Peers in your Lordships’ House. Out of the 88 hereditary Peers that we had until yesterday, two only have failed to do more than 20% of attending this House, which if I may say so compares rather well with the other Peers in this House who do not attend. I attend fairly regularly, as your Lordships will know, and I have noticed over the years that I have been here the enormous hard work of the majority of the hereditary Peers. Not only do they play their part by coming and contributing, but they contribute substantially; they play a valuable part in the work of this House. Among many hereditary Peers, two are more hard-working than many others among us.

If the successive efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to get rid of elections of hereditary Peers had been successful, there would be no question about the current hereditary Peers remaining. Unfortunately, it was not accepted, and it is disappointing that it was not accepted. I think that the last Government and the Conservative Benches were at fault in not recognising the writing on the wall, because we would not be here if the Grocott proposals had been allowed.

But in recognising the enormous contribution that those Peers make to this House, it would be very sad if this Government did not do what this amendment asks for. What saddens me even more is that this Government, by taking this particular Bill forward, without offering the opportunity to consider those Peers who do not attend and do not contribute, are allowing them to remain technically as Members of the House, and doing nothing about it. Getting rid of those who do the work and leaving in those who do not seems to me something that the Government should really reflect on, and I ask them to look seriously at this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, my probing Amendment 93A would safeguard the current process of proving succession to a peerage. According to the College of Arms:

“The Royal Warrant of 2004 requires that a person wishing to be recognised as a Peer prove succession to the relevant dignity, to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Garter King of Arms provides a ruling to the Crown on whether each claim has been satisfactorily made out”.


For more complex claims, the current process is that

“advice should be sought from an officer of the College of Arms in London, the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh (for Peerages of Scotland), or a solicitor”.

As my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar said, claims are currently made

“by submission of a formal Petition to the House of Lords and Statutory Declaration to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice via the Crown Office, made on behalf of the claimant by a suitable person”.

According to the Ministry of Justice guidance notes, the current situation is that the Lord Chancellor is charged with keeping a Roll of the Peerage to ensure that, as far as possible, records of successions of peerages are kept in good order. The point of my amendment is to ensure that, when the House of Lords is removed from any role in determining new peerages, the existing roles of the College of Arms and the Lord Lyon are fully taken into account, as well as the procedures for proving succession to a peerage. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, this Bill is about hereditary Peers. My worry is that if the Ministry of Justice is to be in sole charge of approving hereditary peerage claims, further legislation could be brought in to abolish hereditary peerages in their entirety.

Finally, as a non-lawyer, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General how contested peerage claims are going to be dealt with in detail? Do they go to the lower courts first and up through that process? Why is the final Court of Appeal going to be the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council? From my layman’s understanding, the committee mainly handles cases from our overseas territories and certain Commonwealth countries. Why is it not to be the Supreme Court? I have read that judgments of the Judicial Committee are not binding on UK courts, having only persuasive authority. Does this not add an unnecessary extra layer of complexity to this issue, and could this not be resolved by just replacing the Judicial Committee with the Supreme Court?

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I really think we are giving these matters a significance they do not deserve. I absolutely do not think that the Privy Council should be made responsible for the adjudication. That might have been the case in 1833 and while we had hereditary Peers dominant in this House, but the truth is that the possession of a hereditary peerage will confer no right to sit in this House of Lords. That being so, what is the purpose of this amendment? There is often dispute between prospective Peers: one says that they are entitled and the other says that they are. Well, that is a matter for them. It is a sort of boundary dispute. It would perhaps be a proper matter for a county court—or if, for that matter, there was a financial settlement of some substance, maybe for the High Court—but the idea that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or the Supreme Court should be involved in a quarrel between two people claiming to be a hereditary Peer is complete nonsense.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, seemed to indicate that hereditary Peers may not exist here in the House of Lords in the future, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, indicated something similar. At what point will there be no hereditary Peers in the House of Lords, and how might that situation—which I would strongly support—come about?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 101, which calls for a constitutional conference. We have spent much time debating what the composition of your Lordships’ House should be in the future, but I am afraid that we have the cart before the horse: before you decide on how you would like to reconstitute the membership of your Lordships’ House, you have to decide what they are going to do.

This is the problem that we have at the moment: the Bill does not address the question of the powers of your Lordships’ House. However, until you have decided on the powers of your Lordships’ House, you cannot really decide how you are going to change the membership. At that point, you will get completely bogged down, because you will not then be able to tell people who are elected to your Lordships’ House that they cannot vote at Second Reading, that there is a limit on the amount of ping-pong you can play with the elected House, and so forth.

I sincerely hope that the Government will institute a constitutional conference on the relative powers, because that will be a vexed and difficult issue. I am sure that the other place rather revels in the fact that this House is so illegitimate. Since it can claim that it is legitimate and has a democratic mandate, it can basically overrule what happens in your Lordships’ House, which is reduced to the role of a revising Chamber. On the other hand, the Government have to decide what this House really does. I suggest that it would be very sensible to set up a constitutional conference to work on the relative powers, which could be introduced to your Lordships’ House as it stands today. The Government could then see the results of the decisions made by a constitutional conference on what should and should not happen in this House with the existing membership before they perhaps decide to change the membership overall.

The composition of your Lordships’ House is an extremely complicated issue as well, because there are many different facets to your Lordships’ House, not least the Cross Benches, which play a very valuable role in the deliberations of your Lordships’ House in revising legislation. On the other hand, it is very difficult to see how you can combine the Cross Benches with an elected House; I do not see how you elect independent Members. The political parties would have something to say about elections. It is complicated. Perhaps you could appoint Members of the Cross Benches and have other Members elected, but this is all quite difficult. What happens to the Lords spiritual? Are we to continue to have them in this House if it becomes elected?

Many different issues are raised on the whole question of the composition of your Lordships’ House, not least the issue of elections. Are you going to have elections on the same day as you have a general election for the other place, or at a different time? Do you want the composition of this House politically to be different from that of the House of Commons, or do you want it to be the same?

There are many different issues that come up on this, and it needs a lot of deliberation and cross-party discussions, and we have to give serious thought to how this will all work out in the future. Unless we do think through all this, we will get ourselves into a terrible muddle. It is no good people just getting up saying, “I believe in an elected House”, as the Prime Minister did the other day. You have to think through the ramifications of having an elected House. Would an elected House challenge the House of Commons? I suspect it would. Therefore, you come back to the relative powers of each House.

We are in grave danger of getting into a complete muddle over all this. If we want clear thinking into the future, we will have to work these things out with cross-party consensus, and through constitutional conferences, to arrive at some form of system for the future. This is nothing other than very complicated; we should be giving serious thought to it now.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 95 and 96 to which I have put my name. In doing so, I have basically three concerns. First, I have a strong suspicion that the Government will bring no further proposal for the reform of the House of Lords during the lifetime of this Parliament. Secondly, related to that, a review would act as a spur, so there is just a chance that a review might encourage them to do so. Thirdly, I think the public should know that many of us in this House favour a much more radical solution to the composition and powers of this House. I am one of those: I believe in an elected Chamber.

That takes me to the point made by my noble friend Lord Hamilton. I entirely agree with him that fundamental to any debate should be the powers of this House, because from a decision on the powers stems the decision as to composition. If you are content with being but a revising Chamber, then a process very similar to what we now have is perfectly appropriate. But if, as I believe, you need to have a Chamber which has powers commensurate with the House of Commons and can face the House of Commons down in appropriate cases, then it has got to be elected. I have always believed that, to stand against the elective dictatorship of which my father wrote and spoke, we need an elected House with powers similar to those in the House of Commons.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I very largely agree with the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom. My Amendment 101A is slightly more ambitious—perhaps too ambitious for the taste of your Lordships this evening. We have debated this Bill for four full days now. I do not wish to test the patience of noble Lords much further, but I do think we are missing an opportunity here.

I rather share the view that, as far as the Government are concerned, this will be it in relation to this House. I do not see them moving to any further stage, certainly not in this Parliament. All the evidence, for instance, on an age restriction in this House suggests that it is slightly eclipsed by the average age of the most recent appointments made by the Government to this House.

However, it is worth pausing to consider that, since two fundamental issues have arisen with implications for the constitution—those being devolution and Brexit—we have had no deep thought as to how we now wish this country to be governed. In fact, the last royal commission, which is what my amendment calls for, was instigated in 1969: Lord Crowther started it, and it was finished by Lord Kilbrandon in 1973. It was a contentious commission. Two people resiled from signing it, and people did not agree on it, but at least there was a debate about how we wished this country to be governed.

We have seen a lot of things happen without there being any thorough or clear thought as to whether they are the sort of things that we want to happen. We have seen an expansion in the Welsh Parliament; just recently, they have extended the number of Members. We have seen debates within the Scottish Parliament as to whether you can be a Member of Parliament as well as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. We have had debates about there being no English Parliament when all the component parts of the United Kingdom now have their own Assemblies.

We have heard how in Northern Ireland there has been paralysis over recent years. Do we want to look again at the d’Hondt process? Do we want to look again at how we select the First Minister in Northern Ireland? Do we want to look again at how political parties can self-designate in Northern Ireland?

We have seen recently moves to reorganise local government in England without much debate—a move to unitaries, getting rid of a lot of our district authorities. I personally support that in most cases, but we have had no consideration as to what that means for the representation of the voters in being represented properly.

In the House of Lords itself, in the last Parliament—my noble friend Lord Forsyth was very quick on this the whole time—we had Ministers in this Parliament who were unpaid. I would suggest that, in a democracy, when we have a bicameral system of legislation, to have unpaid Ministers performing the roles of Ministers in the other House is absolutely unacceptable. I very much hope that the Treasury Bench will confirm that there are no Ministers currently doing this unpaid. Incidentally, as we have heard, the majority of Ministers who were doing it unpaid when we on this side of the House were in Government were actually, yes, hereditary Peers.

When I first came to this House, which was not very long ago, the Lord Speaker told me that he thought the difference between the other place and this place was that in the other place you get up and you tell people, and in this place you get up and you ask people. In that spirit, I would ask whether your Lordships agree that what we are doing with this Bill is just spraying a bit of body paint on to a rotting carcass. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace: I think the British public are in a febrile state and do not feel that they are being properly represented. We need to do something about that as a matter of urgency, and what better way than to have a root and branch royal commission to look at how this country is governed and should be governed, how the balance of power is distributed around the country, and whether we need a bicameral system of government going forward?

If we do not need that, so be it; we will have to have some other check on the Executive. If we do, and I suspect that most of your Lordships would think that we do, then we need to decide what the powers of that second body—us, your Lordships’ House, whatever we want to call it—need to be.

I personally believe—I have changed my mind on this—that what we are seeing with this Bill is a move towards a completely different second Chamber. I would not be at all surprised if, in the next decade-plus, we do have an elected senate. Maybe that is a good thing; I do not know if it is a good thing or not. What I do know is that we need to have the debate, on all the issues that I have mentioned. I do not believe that this Bill should become an Act until we have thoroughly thought through the implications of what we are doing.