House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Committee (4th Day)

Amendment 55

55: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause— “Review: changes to the composition of the House of Lords in the future(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, review the impact of this Act and any subsequent legislation which alters the composition of the House of Lords on the process by which changes are made in the future to—(a) appointments to the House of Lords;(b) the composition of the House of Lords.(2) The Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament the report of the review within one year of the day on which this Act is passed.(3) Thereafter, the Secretary of State must initiate a review of the subject matter in subsection (1) within the six months after any future General Election and must lay before each House of Parliament the report of the review within one year of the day on which the General Election took place.”

My Lords, this is a probing amendment. What I am suggesting is a stalking horse, so the detail is not important other than to engender discussion and debate. It is the reasons which lie behind it that matter. Dr Johnson, that quintessential Englishman, was clear when he said:

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully”.

And so I have been thinking.

Looking back to the last time the House considered the matters we are discussing now, some 25 years ago, I find that some things are similar but others are not. In particular, the wider political context is vastly changed. At that time, we were all basking in the glow of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and its political and emotional consequences. Now, sadly, it is all very different. Since those heady days, a great shadow has fallen across the globe. Democracy, freedom and the rule of law have lost at least some of their appeal and popularity, and with it some of their resonance and potency. They have been replaced all around the world by new personalities, new policies, and new political approaches and priorities which are greatly at variance with our national traditions and values. The concept of “good chaps” from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, then generally accepted across the political spectrum here in this country, is at best questioned and at worst dismissed in some quarters.

As I thought about the implications of the Bill in a wider context against this background, it became apparent to me how potentially fragile some of our constitutional arrangements might be. Members of the Committee should forget about the Salisbury/Addison convention and rather focus on the Parliament Acts. In raw political terms, an unscrupulous and determined Government with a big majority of seats in the House of Commons—which we know does not necessarily require as huge a number of votes in the country as one might expect, under the rules of our existing electoral system— could, in pretty short order, completely alter the entire composition of the second Chamber or even abolish it entirely, as happened under the Commonwealth.

My Lords, I shall speak to three amendments in this group. Amendments 91 and 94, in my name, seek to address gender equality in hereditary peerages once Clause 2 of this Bill ends for ever your Lordships’ ancient jurisdiction to determine peerage claims. Amendment 97 considers whether the name “the House of Lords”, with its inherently gendered, privileged and feudal connotations, remains appropriate once the gendered, privileged and feudal hereditary Lords have left. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, who have added their names to Amendment 97.

Equality of succession to hereditary peerages is an issue I care about deeply. I had hoped we might change the law to remove this discriminatory patriarchal anomaly while I was here, but that now appears unlikely, given this Bill. The best we can do is require the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to which peerage claim jurisdiction now moves, to exercise its functions in a non-discriminatory manner and to consult on the challenges posed thereby.

Throughout the debate on the hereditary peerage, we have been assailed for our gender. Since the Countess of Mar departed, we have indeed all been male, and it is right that we should not reserve seats in Parliament for a predominately male cohort. However, the equitable solution is not to abolish us due to our gender but to change succession laws to alter our gender. It is discriminatory to critique us for a protected characteristic over which we have no control while refusing to allow us to change the law. These amendments are our last hope of dragging the hereditary peerage into modern times and establishing equality at the heart of British society. Once we leave your Lordships’ House, I think no one will care.

Here, I note my interest as the Earl of Devon. I am the 37th man to have held that title. There has been one woman, Countess Isabella, the last Queen of the Wight—an example of powerful feudal female leadership. The title was most recently restored in Tudor times, since when it passes exclusively to all heirs male. My grandfather, my father and I each grew up as the only brother among multiple sisters, poster boys for male primogeniture. The youngest of four, I was uncomfortable that my gender charted my life. That my mother “would have gone to any lengths” to have a son was a phrase that echoed somewhat awkwardly through my childhood, particularly given the prominence in our home of the portrait of the ninth Earl with his 13 sisters, painted in 1779. There are no male spares in the Courtenay family tree, which is so verdant with female branches. “Kind hearts and Coronets”, we are not.

Amendments 91 and 94 are therefore our latest tilt at gender parity. It is, frankly, embarrassing that 900 years after Baldwin championed Matilda, we are still wrestling with the patriarchal discrimination inherent in male primogeniture. Given the current state of America, the global predominance of big-man geopolitics and the invidious threat of influencers online—I binge-watched Netflix’s astounding “Adolescence” this weekend —the fight against toxic masculinity has rarely been more important.

These amendments have been crafted with the support of the Public Bill Office, to which I am most grateful, to ensure that they fall within scope. They would not change the rules of succession—I was not allowed to do that—but they go as far as they can. The Bill not only removes the right of hereditary Peers to sit; through Clause 2 it strips your Lordships of your long-standing jurisdiction to determine claims to hereditary peerages. Jurisdiction passes to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. My amendments would impose upon the committee an obligation to exercise that jurisdiction in a gender-neutral manner and to conduct an inquiry into how the principles of equality may be applied to that task.

The Government may argue that this is not the place to address equality, but transparently this is the only place to address that issue. We are being asked to legislate the loss of one of our most ancient powers. It is entirely within our rights—indeed, I hazard that it is our duty—to ensure that the power is exercised from this time forward in a non-discriminatory fashion. If we do not pass these amendments, we are washing our hands of the issue and allowing centuries of discrimination to simply continue unchecked.

Noble Lords might ask why this quixotic campaign is relevant, given that hereditary Peers are soon to be removed from your Lordships’ House. It is relevant because, despite our departure from these red Benches, the hereditary peerage will continue to exist and will remain totemic, if politically less significant, within our society and culture. The Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain will continue to lead us in national ceremony; dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, lords, baronets and knights will remain prominent figures within their communities; ancient estates will continue to steward much of our most significant natural capital; glossy magazines will maintain their febrile fascination with titled families; and within many rural parishes, the local squire will remain a significant employer and landowner. Just imagine if, within a generation or two, half of those people were women. It would be a seismic shift, ensuring once and for all that gender equality pervades all levels of our society. This is a change worth fighting for and one that the Government should support.

The Labour Party has yet to sample the benefits of female leadership, but it does have stellar leadership within this House from the Lord Privy Seal—the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. I am particularly grateful for her engagement. She has expressed sympathy for these efforts to secure female succession but has stated that this Bill is not the place to address the issue and that it is legally too complex for this Government to address. As to this Bill not being the right place, I disagree. Given that we are transferring jurisdiction, this is absolutely the time to ensure that the jurisdiction is exercised equitably. As to complexity, I disagree. Of course the patriarchy puts up barriers to its dismantlement; that is how it works. That is exactly the purpose of Amendment 94. It allows the Judicial Committee to consult on the exercise of its jurisdiction and to determine what steps might be taken to ensure equality. I challenge the Government to be brave, to channel Baldwin and to support these amendments. After 900 years, it is about time.

I turn in my remaining time to Amendment 97, which asks that we consider the suitability of the name “the House of Lords” following the departure of the hereditary Peers. At the most basic level, having finally cleaned out all the hereditary Lords from this place, it seems odd to keep their name above the door. It seems perverse to remove the purportedly indefensible hereditary privilege from our constitutional democracy and then seek to maintain the trappings, nomenclature, iconography and privileges inherent in that discredited hereditary principle.

I refer noble Lords to the dictionary definition of “Lord”. The noun means

“a man of noble rank or high office; a nobleman”;

the verb means to

“act in a superior and domineering manner toward (someone)”.