House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, as an elected hereditary Peer who voted for the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, I feel bound to oppose this Bill for the same reasons as put forward by my noble friend Lord Elton and others. I have the highest regard for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, but regret that he insists on bringing this matter up again at this time. I repeat what I said when we last debated this matter only last December—namely, I do not believe that the public view the presence in this place of 92 Peers by succession as any more offensive than the presence of around 700 Peers who sit here by appointment. Furthermore, I do not think it is correct to argue that the hereditaries who sit in your Lordships’ House have any less legitimacy than the life Peers. It is now very competitive to enter this House if you happen to be a hereditary Peer. I think the last by-election on the Deputy Speakers’ list worked very well. Noble Lords were able to interview the candidates at a hustings before casting their votes. They certainly do not get the chance to do so in the case of Peers who are appointed to this House.

Furthermore, the hereditaries who sit in your Lordships’ House are generally younger than life Peers, at least when they take their seats. They are more geographically representative and I believe that their link with history and tradition adds to their legitimacy. It is a good thing that prime ministerial patronage and nomination by party leaders are not the only way by which people may become Members of your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Pannick]

Following those arguments, does the noble Viscount think that we should have more hereditary Peers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, as I mentioned, I voted for the passage of the House of Lords Act as a reasonable compromise and I believe in incremental reform, but the reform agreed was that 92 hereditaries would remain pending substantive reform of your Lordships’ House, which was understood by all to mean the adoption of an elected or partially elected House.

There is one area where I would support changes to the present system of by-elections. I see no reason why Deputy Speaker by-elections are open to all Peers whereas vacancies in the party blocs are chosen only by the surviving hereditaries. I would support the widening of the franchise of all by-elections to include the life Peers in each party bloc. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, pointed out that it may be seen as absurd to elect a legislator with an electorate of three or four and this change would correct that. It is most surprising that he did not mention the firm and binding agreement reached at the time of the passage of the House of Lords Act in 1999. If your Lordships were to agree to pass this Bill, it would be a very clear breach of that agreement.

In introducing his Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that nobody thought in 1999 that the by-election system would still be operating in 2017. However, nobody thought in 1999 that by 2017 no substantive reform to your Lordships’ House would have taken place. The noble Lord said that a small number of Peers had blocked the passage of this measure effectively in perpetuity. That reveals that he thinks that the present system will continue in perpetuity, and that the House as presently constituted will never be replaced by a wholly or partly elected House. He observed that if the membership of your Lordships’ House remains at 92 but the total membership is reduced to 600 as a result of the adoption of any recommendations which may be made by the Lord Speaker’s commission, it would mean that the proportion of hereditaries entitled to sit would increase from 11.5% to 15%. However, he omitted to observe that immediately after the House of Lords Act 1999, the proportion of hereditary Peers was 13.75%, and that this proportion has progressively declined as the size of your Lordships’ House has increased.

If your Lordships’ House should adopt a scheme for reducing its size to around 600, which involved the retention of a slate of Peers from which certain Members would be selected to sit and vote, I would be most happy for the 92 to remain as members of the larger slate rather than for all of them to be entitled to sit and vote. I believe that the best way to protect the reputation of the House, especially at this time, would be for the noble Lord to withdraw his Bill. I shall certainly continue to oppose its passage.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am not an actuary, but I know that at least 20 of the hereditary Peers on the Conservative Benches are already over 75 and a considerable number of them are over 80. I do not wish the Grim Reaper to visit any of my noble friends or indeed the noble Lords opposite, but the noble Lord knows very well that that is the position. It will happen. This would be statute, and over time that proportion will change. I have an amendment later that I hope will address that question; I hope we will get on and get to it, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will accept it.

I ask your Lordships not to accept strictures from the Opposition Benches but to guard the point of proportion. I agree that this should be a matter for the Government. I think we should also be looking at the issue of more comprehensive reform, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, if I may add to what my noble friend has just said on the issue of proportion, in a smaller House of, say, 600 Members, if Burns is implemented, the proportions of the hereditaries and of the Bishops would simply revert to what they were immediately after the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999. So in a sense one could argue that the proportion of hereditaries and of Bishops has declined gradually beyond what was agreed at the time of the reform in 1999.

I also support the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. I believe it would be wrong of your Lordships’ House to agree to remove the hereditary by-elections, for the very simple reason that it was made very clear in 1999 that the hereditary element would remain until and unless the House was substantially reformed into some kind of more democratically elected Chamber. I have heard it said on many occasions that the retention of 92 hereditary Peers and the system of by-elections to replace them was only ever intended to be a temporary measure. That is not my recollection of what happened at the time. I remember my noble friend Lord Salisbury, as he now is, explaining to a meeting of Conservative Peers that it was quite likely that the by-elections would remain for a very long time because he thought it likely that the House would not agree to substantive reform. My noble friend’s characteristically astute judgment has proved correct. It was on this basis that a large majority of Peers decided to support the passage of the Act. It would be quite wrong to change the terms of the agreement then reached without once again seeking the opinion of all those who were disenfranchised by the House of Lords Act.

I also take issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said in the debate on 11 July on the Procedure Committee report. I understand that the committee considered the proposal that Standing Orders should be amended to provide that the whole House should take part in hereditary by-elections. That is different from the change that I think the Procedure Committee should consider, which is that the three party blocs and the Cross-Bench bloc should be retained for all by-elections other than those in the list of 15 Peers who originally held office as Deputy Speakers, but that those four blocs should be opened up to life Peers of the same party. This would get rid of the charge that the Liberal Democrat and Labour Party by-elections, with as few as three electors, are absurd. I think the House should make this change.

It is also right that the Conservative and Cross-Bench life Peers should have a vote in the selection of a new hereditary colleague equivalent to what their hereditary colleagues have, even though the existing electorates of 30 or 40 are not so ridiculous and have provided for some quite competitive and interesting elections. Indeed, I do not think there is any logical reason for the difference in the Standing Orders adopted in 1999 between the ability of the life Peers to vote in the Deputy Speaker elections but not in the single-party bloc elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Trenchard]

I understand the noble Lord’s point of view, but I thought it was relevant to comment on the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, had spoken about the lack of interest in the hereditary by-elections. I wanted to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Trefgarne’s regret Motion because, for the reasons that I am trying to explain, I think the by-election system has more merit than many of your Lordships often seem to think when they express an opinion. It is also a benefit to—

[Lord Elton]

With the greatest of respect for my noble friend, and with great embarrassment, I have to say that, as I said before, I do not think the speeches of this sort are addressing the Motion before the House.

[Viscount Trenchard]

I give way.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords—

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, Amendment 12 states that Standing Orders must provide for 90 people to be excepted for the duration of a Parliament and that a new organisation, a hereditary Peers commission, shall determine at the start of a Parliament which hereditary Peers shall fill the 90 places provided. The amendment also sets out how the commission should be launched immediately after the Bill becomes law, as well as its role in by-elections.

Amendments 32 and 33 set out alternative details of the proposed composition of the commission. Deciding this has given me some difficulty. It is not entirely clear in my mind how it should be made up—whether it should consist of Peers in the House of Lords, excepted Peers or hereditary Peers including those excluded from the House in 1999. For simplicity’s sake I have for now considered, as per Amendment 32, that the commission should,

“comprise two persons nominated by the leader of each political party”.

For the Cross-Bench elections there should be two Members from the Cross Benches, but, as an alternative, they could comprise two independent members of a non-statutory appointments commission. The amendment sets out that the procedure should be carried out at the start of each Parliament, with the first appointments being made immediately after the next general election.

Amendments 32 and 33 also set out criteria for selection. The commission must take account of party balance, age, interests, expertise, commitment to participate and regional representation. Importantly, the commission must ensure that the party balance among the hereditary Peers who are to be Members of the House helps to ensure that the overall party balance reflects the share of the vote secured by the main political parties at the general election. The hereditary Peers commission will also supervise any by-election that takes place during the course of a Parliament.

This amendment should help monitor the balance of the 90 hereditary Peers and goes some way to answering the criticisms of my noble friend Lord Cormack and the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber that some of the political parties’ representation among the 90 excepted Peers does not reflect their electoral position in the other place. I beg to move.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that my noble friend’s amendment has got the wording precisely correct, but he is right to draw attention to the possibility of changing the Standing Orders. I have thought for a long time that the present Standing Orders providing for only the hereditary Peers to vote in the party bloc by-elections should be changed, on the basis that all Peers in this House are equal. From the beginning, the life Peers on the Cross Benches and the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches should have had a vote alongside their hereditary colleagues.

If that had been the case, there would certainly be a rather different feeling in this House about the obsession of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in pursuing this single-issue Bill. He has done it with great tenacity, for which I greatly admire him, but I am surprised that he thinks it proper to bring a single-issue Bill to your Lordships’ House that seeks to unpick a very firm agreement between the House of Lords and the Executive which was made in 1999. The agreement was that the hereditary Peers would remain until the House was properly reformed. It may be 20 years on—it may be 100 years on—but it would be absolutely wrong not to make proper progress in moving to a democratic House but simply to remove one important element of it which was part of the agreement from the beginning.

I do not often find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but I felt today that he could not have put it better. I utterly and completely agree with everything he said. This is not a small issue. It is a fundamental issue that affects the relationship of your Lordships’ House with the Executive and the country. It is fundamentally important in the evolution of your Lordships’ House through hundreds of years of history, and to break the solemn and binding agreement made in 1999 with this piecemeal, cherry-picking piece of legislation would be very regrettable.

The amendment may not be quite right, but your Lordships’ House should look at revising the Standing Orders to remove the unfair difference between life Peers and hereditary Peers, so that all the life Peers in the party blocs could vote on the selection of new hereditaries. That would get rid of the most arcane and slightly ridiculous elections that take place on the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, I should have advised the House, for which I apologise, that if Amendments 12, 13 and 14 are agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 15 to 31 due to pre-emption.