House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 9th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. I apologise to the Committee for not having spoken at Second Reading but I was unable to be here because I had to attend a memorial service. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. My understanding in 1999 was that this was a deal that would enable the important piece of constitutional legislation to pass, which would be honoured by all sides of the House—that 92 hereditary Peers would remain in the House until substantive reform were to take place. It was clearly understood at that time that the intention was that the House should be reformed on to a largely elected basis.

Most of those who now support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, believe that to end the principle of hereditary by-elections and therefore eventually end the right to sit in this House by any hereditary Peer will actually strengthen their own tenure under the appointed system. They believe that the least acceptable part of the composition of your Lordships’ House is the hereditary Peers. I beg to differ. I have no wish to defend the hereditary principle as having any particular legitimacy but I do not think that the practice of appointment by patronage has very much legitimacy either. I do not believe that in the country at large it is regarded as having such. Rather, I believe that the presence of 92 hereditary Peers in your Lordships’ House actually makes this House, in the minds of the public at large, more interesting and more legitimate. The link with history is regarded by many people as having legitimacy. There are many means by which members of any institution in the country gain legitimacy. To argue that any Peer who sits in your Lordships’ House by succession is not there legitimately would not be supported by the public at large.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Viscount Trenchard]

Noble Lords opposite tend to disagree but when I discuss this with people—with taxi drivers, people in shops, people on the Underground—I find that the presence of the hereditaries in this House is seen as a continuation of a great tradition. It is a link with history. Therefore, I think that those who wish to end the hereditary principle for topping up the 92 hereditary Peers are mistaken.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, stated that the hereditary by-elections are absurd. They are no more absurd than any other elections in many bodies around the country. Very often a small group of people decides between one, two or several candidates. Indeed, I think Her Majesty the Queen still chooses between two candidates for the position of Archbishop of York or Canterbury. I am not sure whether that system still exists but it certainly did so.

I disagree with part of my noble friend Lord Cormack’s speech but I agree with his proposal that the by-elections could be made rather less arcane—I think that is a better word than absurd—simply by stating that the electoral college for each group should be amended to include all the Peers of that party grouping. I have always thought that there was not much logic in the Standing Orders as established in 1999 which provided that those originally elected as Deputy Speakers should be replaced by hereditary Peers elected by the whole House rather than by only the survivors of the electoral college.

I have spoken on this for long enough. I earnestly support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne.

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

I hope that those who were joshing and jeering at my noble friend Lord Trenchard will think very carefully about what they have done. He is entirely entitled to his view, whatever it is. We have had some rather pious expressions about the reputation of the House. What is the reputation of this House if my noble friend cannot say what he strongly believes without being jeered by Members of the Opposition? They should reflect very carefully as we continue the debate.

On the question of the reputation of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was not to know, when he agreed to this Friday being an opportunity for Committee on the Bill, that it would bookend a week in which it might appear to many outside that we spent a great deal of time talking about ourselves. We spent Monday talking about ourselves. We are going to spend today talking about ourselves. Noble Lords around the House have pleaded that we should try to finish today’s proceedings as quickly as possible.

The Government have made it utterly clear that the Bill is not going to become law. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, knows that. I know that. The rest of the Committee knows that. Would not the easiest thing be for the noble Lord to say that he was not going to continue with these proceedings? The reputation of the House would then be saved and we could continue to discuss some of the real and serious issues that face this country and the rest of the world, which are the issues that shine a light on this House in the brightest and most sensible possible way.

Some noble Lords have asked why we are where we now are. Perhaps next to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, I know more about this anybody else. When at the end of 1998 I became Leader of the Opposition it was for me to close the final agreement, if I can call it that, with the noble and learned Lord, who was responsible for the Bill that removed two-thirds of the Conservative Party from this House at a stroke and left patronage intact with the Prime Minister. My then noble friends—in fact, noble Lords from all round the House—were not very keen on that. They were not prepared to go unless some sort of signal was made about the seriousness of a stage two reform, which was to move towards a democratic House.

I will now cut a very long story short. On the final afternoon, the noble and learned Lord and I made the agreement on what came to be known as the Weatherill amendment—although perhaps it should now be called the Irvine compromise; they are two great servants of Parliament who acted seriously to help the governance of this country. The noble and learned Lord then said to me, “You know, these by-elections will never happen because we intend to come forward with a reform”. We had built in a fail-safe that no by-election would take place until the year after the following general election, which would have given the Labour Party three or four years to come forward with a proper reform.

My noble friend Lord Wakeham, who sadly is not here today, was invited to set up a royal commission to look at all these things, which would form the basis of new legislation. This was well understood and I said to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, that I, too, was happy to make this agreement because if that reform did not take place, then we would have the by-elections. It was a small price to pay to get the Bill, which became the House of Lords Act 1999, through this House as quickly and sensibly as possible, thus retaining the reputation of this House—and we have been waiting all this time.

My noble friend Lord Cormack reflected that we were bringing an end to this system but in doing so, we would also create something new: the only way into this House would now be by party or prime ministerial patronage, and many of us object to that. In the very good debate that took place on Monday, there seemed to be the start of a consensus that there should be a better way of getting into this House. Should we not then work together? Should the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, with all his experience, knowledge and time in both Houses, and I and others not come forward with a proposal for a proper and serious independent Appointments Commission, with all the other things that are required? As part of that, we could remove these by-elections.

The other thing that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was not to know when he wrote and introduced this Bill and agreed to today’s Committee was that the House of Commons would now take an interest in these issues. We have recently had an email from the chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Bernard Jenkin, saying that he will carry out an investigation into all aspects of how people get into this House. If we were to pass the Bill and send it to the House of Commons, it would immediately be thrown out because the Government would quite rightly say, “We’ve got an important committee of the House of Commons looking at these things. Let us wait until then before we come to a decision”.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, had a good debate at Second Reading. We had an excellent debate earlier in the week and have had a short debate today. I urge him: would it not be better, for all our sakes, to pull back from the Bill now and work together on a proper consensus that unites government and opposition in providing a proper, long-lasting reform to the House of Lords?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My view is diametrically opposed to that of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I can see no compromise. You cannot half hang a man—you either have the by-elections or you do not. The noble Earl thinks that we should have them. I think that we should not. The Government cannot support the Bill at the moment but I think we could conclude the Committee stage, given that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has been given the assurances that he sought from the Government. Therefore, we can conclude these proceedings in 10 minutes through the remaining amendments not being moved. I have been around a long time and I know that in practical terms that means the Bill can proceed no further.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord quite answered the point made by my noble friend Lord Caithness. He asked whether the noble Lord would think it sensible that the House should consider some means of improving the Standing Orders, or changing the Standing Orders which govern the by-election procedure to make them less absurd. The noble Lord has pointed out that an election with an electoral college of two or three is seen as absurd, whereas I think the by-elections for the Conservative Benches and the Cross Benches are somewhat less absurd because there are about 30 electors in both cases. Therefore, the noble Lord did not answer the point made by my noble friend as to whether he would support an improvement in the Standing Orders for the by-election system. My noble friend asked him to state whether he was utterly opposed to the by-election system, however the Standing Orders might be improved to reduce the absurdity of the Liberal Democrat and Labour by-elections.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I am minded to withdraw this amendment. I do so on the assumption, first, that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will not ask for a Report stage of the Bill and, secondly, when the Bill gets to the House of Commons—if it does by some accident—the Government will not support it. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.