House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Committee (5th Day) (Continued)

Amendment 103

103: Clause 4, page 2, line 16, leave out from “force” to “which” and insert “on the day on”

My Lords, Amendment 103 has generated quite a lot of interest across the House. It is a very simple and easy to understand amendment. It effectively activates what would then be an Act of Parliament on Royal Assent.

Colleagues may not be surprised that I tabled it after the Opposition, most unusually, moved the adjournment of the House, all as part of their attempt to frustrate the legitimate work of a newly elected Government. They won that vote by a majority smaller than the number of hereditary Peers who voted with them. We saw men who sit in the House by virtue of appointment by an earlier Prime Minister—something which they now seem to decry about today’s Prime Minister—stop a newly elected Government continuing with its business that day.

That adjournment may not have been on this Bill, but it was behaviour which is not normally witnessed in your Lordships’ House and which we had hoped would not be seen again. However, I see from the Guardian that something similar has been suggested for trying to stop the Renters’ Rights Bill. I hope that the Guardian is wrong.

With regard to this Bill, we have had to sit through a tsunami of amendments that have no relevance to the purpose of the content of the Bill and which everyone knows will never be part of the Act. It may well be that the clerks said that such amendments were acceptable, but that does not mean that they had to be tabled. Just because you can do something, it does not mean that you should do something. I was particularly surprised to find that His Majesty’s Opposition had tabled amendments on future appointments to this House, which they know have got nothing to do with the Bill and will not find their way into the Act. The mover of that amendment is shaking his head. I think he knows jolly well that they are not to do with the hereditaries and that they will not find their way into this Act. That is not the action of a responsible Opposition.

There are also amendments, some perfectly within scope, tabled by hereditary Peers without the customary signal of a declaration of interest. The Code of Conduct says that we should all act solely in terms of the public interest and act and take decisions impartially. Peers

“should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves”,

and should

“conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of the House of Lords”.

Importantly, the Code of Conduct says that, when speaking, any financial interest must be declared where relevant to the matter under discussion. Given that the privilege of membership of this House affects every hereditary Peer and that they have an interest in whether they are to lose their ability to be here, I would have thought that, even if it was only a perceived interest, they would have declared it when speaking or tabling any amendments.

Our colleagues in this House cannot say that Labour kept its intentions secret. Nearly a year ago, our manifesto said:

“The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords”.

That was a clear manifesto commitment, which included the word “immediate”. Despite that, we have witnessed repeated arguments and unnecessary degrouping, not for the convenience of the Committee but seemingly to spin things out. In fact, I was tempted to degroup my two amendments in this group just to get even—but I resisted that temptation.

It is always good to look at history when discussing legislation. I am, as ever, guided by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden—I think not in his place at the moment—who, in the House magazine, reminded us that in 1910-11:

“The Tories’ fury knew no bounds”.

They “foolishly”—his word, not mine—used their

“position in the upper House to wreck much of the legislation of the great reforming Liberal government, which won a massive majority in 1906”.

We know where that led, but it seems the Tories never learn. By using the numbers they have here, so recently augmented by Boris Johnson, to frustrate a newly elected Government’s programme, they are damaging, in my view, not just themselves but the reputation of this House.

We have witnessed five days of debates on a four-clause Bill, covering two pages, with one simple proposition: that hereditary Peers would no longer be legislators in this House—although, of course, they could always stand for election to the House of Commons. We have had long debates, with some speaking on many occasions. I am sorry not to see the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, here—he and I did battle on the radio earlier today. He obviously has a clear interest and I think has already spoken about a dozen times, not today but during the debate. Many of these speeches, in fact most of them, have repeated the same mantra: that they do not like the Bill or they are demanding some guarantee of a life peerage, possibly in exchange for better progress on the Bill.

For myself, and possibly for the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with whom I jointly chair the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, the real loss is that this time-wasting and irrelevant content has taken both the good will and, possibly, time from other changes which so many of us want to see, whether that is action on the size of the House, on the role of HOLAC, on participation activity rates, on term limits or age limits, or indeed anything else. Had we been able to deal swiftly with this Bill and got on with debating these far more substantial and far-reaching changes, that would have been to the benefit of the whole House, even had we not gone as far as an elected House, as some Members want.

I guess my warning today is that, if the antics that we have witnessed continue on Report, even with the threat of more ping-pong, the amendment which I am moving now might not be necessary, as Royal Assent and the end of the Session may happen at the same time because of the delay in getting the Bill through.

We should be moving rapidly to get the Bill through, to give our highly respected hereditary friends and colleagues time to know when they are leaving, so that they can realise and fulfil their contribution until then. It would give certainty to the whole House about when that will happen and give us time to plan. Many are Deputy Speakers, chairs of committees or leading Members in other roles; we will need time to do some back-filling and to get on and develop that, so we really should finish the Bill as soon as possible.