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

Debate between Viscount Trenchard and Lord Strathclyde

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

[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?