My Lords, I wish to explain the context of this Bill, detail its principal provisions and, most importantly, stress what it is designed to achieve. Its introduction is premised on a dual need: to strengthen the House in what it does and in how it is seen by those outside.
Many of those taking part in this debate are aware that this is a revised version of the Bill I introduced two Sessions ago. It has been amended in the light of what was said in that debate. However, its genesis goes back much further. Almost 20 years ago, I penned the first draft of what became the House of Lords Bill, better known as the Steel Bill. It was introduced into this House by Lord Steel of Aikwood on behalf of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, a body I founded with my noble friend the late Lord Cormack.
The Bill had four main provisions, which in effect constituted the manifesto of the campaign. It put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis; it ended the by-elections for hereditary Peers; it allowed Peers to retire; and it provided for Peers who commit serious criminal offences to be expelled from membership of the House. It was variously debated, twice in 2007, and enjoyed wide support, but, because of opposition from a small minority of Peers, we were not able to make progress as it stood. We were, though, able to get two of its provisions enacted—enabling Peers to retire and removing those who commit serious offences—through the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, introduced as a Private Member’s Bill in the other place by Dan Byles and facilitated it in its passage by the Government. We now also have the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill going through your Lordships’ House. That means that only one provision of the Steel Bill is, in effect, unfulfilled: putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission, HOLAC, on a statutory basis. For me, this Bill constitutes unfinished business.
This Bill has four main provisions. First, it puts HOLAC on a statutory basis. The case for doing so has always been strong, but is made even more so by the hereditary Peers Bill. Enactment of that Bill will mean there is no route to becoming a Peer independent of prime ministerial patronage. My contention is that this Bill has to be conjoined with the hereditary Peers Bill to ensure that the Prime Minister does not enjoy exclusive, unrestrained power to create Members of this House. Those who have opposed the hereditary Peers Bill for giving too much power of patronage to the Prime Minister need to explain, if they do not support this Bill, what they would do to constrain that power.
Putting HOLAC on a statutory basis would protect its independence. It can be argued that no Prime Minister would think of getting rid of HOLAC, but the point is that they could. It could have been argued that no Prime Minister would ignore a recommendation of HOLAC on the appointment of Peers, but they could—and, as we know, have done. The point is not just one of quality control: fundamental to my argument is that it is core to public trust in appointments to this House. In terms of what the public want from HOLAC and the appointments process, my Bill is a modest one and, as we have seen with the Steel and Grocott Bills, if you do not make modest changes now, the likelihood is that you will eventually end up with more radical surgery.
My Lords, it is a huge honour to follow the excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and to speak here for the first time.
It has been a whirlwind few weeks and I am so very grateful to everyone who has helped and supported me: Black Rod and all the staff here for the incredibly thorough induction process and wonderful, warm welcome, as well as my noble friends Lord Dubs and Lady Hodge, both of whom have been so crucial in my career to date and have helped enormously in making my formal introduction a tiny bit less scary.
Having survived that a couple of weeks ago does not make it any less daunting to stand here, not least because I usually never speak without the prop of a full deck of PowerPoint slides. Frankly, I was disappointed to learn from my noble friends Lord Kennedy and Lady Smith—who have been so helpful in every other way—that I would not be able to use slides here this morning, so please bear with me as I speak unadorned.
I am new here, but I am not new to politics. My first election was in 1987, when—along with the late, great Philip Gould—I worked on Labour’s campaign. Young Labour Party staffers I spoke to recently were amazed by this, as most had not even been born then, and pressed me for quaint stories about the olden days. I can see that many noble Lords here will not need any such briefing.
I have worked on almost every general election since, and often on what happened in between too. Overall, if my career has been about anything, it has been about keeping the organisations I have worked with—businesses, government, political parties and their leaders—in closer touch with those whom they serve. Focus groups and polling have been the tools of my trade. In my view these are not dark arts, as some characterise them, but an effective way of creating an open, sustained and positive connection. And politics—let us face it—needs that positive connection; it is very much a work in progress.
My Lords, it is my great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Mattinson. We expected an excellent maiden speech from her this morning and we were not disappointed, because the content, as well as the delivery, lived up to expectations. I congratulate my noble friend. As it happens, her speech was entirely in line with much of what was said by my friend from university days, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in relation to reputation.
I owe my noble friend Lady Mattinson a debt of gratitude. As she described, her entry into the wider political arena was in 1987. She said that did not engage in the dark arts, but I seem to remember she was working with someone who did, who is now our ambassador in Washington. I owe her one, because I entered the House of Commons in 1987 with the largest majority that I ever got—of over 24,000—and I never matched it again, so I thank my noble friend very much indeed for that.
My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the reputation of politics and the way in which people see us—both in Parliament and outside—and the critical nature of the threat to democracy and the way in which we conduct ourselves. That is true in terms of young people. I did a citizenship class earlier this week with a school and discovered that none of the 28 young people read a newspaper. Only six of them ever regularly watched the evening news, but over half of them had, either deliberately or by algorithm, been affected by Andrew Tate. We have a major problem and we here in Parliament have to set an example.
I know—because I have supported my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on previous occasions—that the tortoise, and not the hare, is the way in which we conduct ourselves. When the tortoise gets shot, rather than the hare, we are in difficulty. I say to Members opposite that had the Grocott proposals been supported by the whole House, and they were by the majority, the historic Disraeli way of doing things from the Conservative Benches might have achieved a different outcome from the Bill we are dealing with in Committee at the moment.
My Lords, it seems that we never stop talking about ourselves to ourselves, but I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on securing a Second Reading of this well-aired Bill and want to touch on three aspects.
The first is the significant amendment to the House of Lords Appointments Commission remit to include the criterion of
“a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House of Lords”.
The emphasis was, and is, on maintaining the quality of the House of Lords by recruiting from a pool of those with conspicuous merit. The Bill enjoins the nominating bodies—be they political parties or other organisations—to submit, along with the nomination, the procedures and criteria involved in the initial selection of potential Peers. This points to the elimination of individuals who may offer only their donor credentials, rather than those of suitability and/or conspicuous merit.
Secondly, the requirement for the House of Lords to be no larger than the House of Commons imposes on the Prime Minister an obligation to be mindful of the number of Peers nominated by his or her office. The “one in, two out” procedure first put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, would, in time, contribute to a reduction in the size of the House if further augmented by a renewed effort on the part of group Leaders to ask non-contributors to retire. As the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, presciently said in November 2022 when discussing the earlier Bill, a lack of restraint on numbers might cause a future Labour Government to feel justified in introducing stricter mechanisms. This we know to be true.
Thirdly, while many of these changes do not require primary legislation—all that is needed is the agreement of the Government and, hey presto, we could, in a short time, have a smaller, more effective, less expensive and a more justifiable Chamber—they do require the willingness of the Government of the day and, in particular, the Prime Minister to relinquish a measure of patronage power. It can only be hoped that this Bill, and other internal and external pressures, will create a culture in which this can happen. What I mean by this is that current and future Prime Ministers will feel bound to nominate new peerages very sparingly and with the new HOLAC criteria in mind.
My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this debate, not only because of the privilege of hearing from my noble friend Lady Mattinson, whom I am sure the Conservatives fear because of her incredible knowledge about the thinking and behaviour of voters, but to support the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, with whom I now have the privilege of co-chairing the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. Indeed, as he described, much work has already been done by that campaign, not on my watch but before then, under his tutelage and that of the late Lord Cormack, much missed in this parish.
The Bill has been here before, as we heard, but without the then Government’s support. Interestingly, the Norton Bill was in some ways juggling for attention along with other Bills from my noble friend Lord Grocott to end hereditary by-elections, which the then Conservative Government refused to support—although I see that now they are out of office, they somehow think it is the best thing since sliced bread. Perhaps, now that Boris Johnson can no longer nominate reams of Peers—some not entirely to the liking of HOLAC—the Conservatives might also suddenly see the wisdom of today’s Bill and rush to its support.
The purpose of the Bill has been well elaborated by its sponsor. Therefore, I just want to do one thing: to underline the importance of the fact that if this change is enacted, it will have emanated from your Lordships’ House. That seems an important item. It is not a matter of us “pulling up the drawbridge” after we are all safely over it but of using our understanding of the role we play here, the demands made of our Members, the need for appropriate participation, the importance of balance between the two main parties, and the vital role that, as we all know, is played by the Cross Benches. It is about putting that together; we know there is a better way of scrutinising who should join us and the criteria for who should join us so that we have a House able to meet the very demanding asks we make of our Members.
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her most accomplished speech this morning. We are old friends and colleagues from another place, and although we have different political views, I look forward very much to hearing more from her in the period to come. I also thank my noble friend Lord Norton for the way in which he introduced this Bill, although I am afraid that I do not support it—I will explain why.
When the House debated the Burns report some years ago, I was one of the few Members who spoke against the recommendations. That was because it proposed that the House of Lords, an unelected House, should decide on the size and composition of itself, and I thought that was fundamentally wrong. I have the same objection, I am afraid, to the Bill before us today. It proposes to take away from the Prime Minister the power to appoint Members of this House. The last word on who sits and does not sit in this House would rest with members of the House of Lords Appointments Commission—not the elected House of Commons, the elected Government or the elected Prime Minister, but the unelected HOLAC. This is absolutely no criticism of the members of HOLAC; as far as I can tell, they are of unimpeachable integrity and wise and experienced —but they are not elected.
The Bill sets out two criteria, one of which is “conspicuous merit”, although I know my noble friend said he was not wedded to that particular form of words. I looked up “merit” in the dictionary, and it is defined as “excellence”. Of course, if we were looking for excellence in nursing, the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, would pass with flying colours, and if we were looking at media, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would pass with flying colours. But it is such a woolly definition, and I am not sure why we should not have people in the House of “inconspicuous merit” as well.
My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as a HOLAC-nominated Peer, and before I speak to my key point, I want to speak briefly about the impact of the HOLAC process on those of us who arrive through it.
Applying to HOLAC is much like applying for a job: you research the role and the organisation, complete an application and then articulate your suitability at interview. The panel has to be convinced not only by suitability but by capacity and your understanding of the House and the role of a Peer. That does not make us better or worse Peers but it shapes expectations and instils a strong sense that, while membership is a great privilege, it is also a job of work.
The key point I want to raise in relation to the Bill is criteria and, specifically, the clause allowing for additional criteria with
“regard to the diversity of the United Kingdom population”.
There is no constitutional requirement for this House to be representative, but most of us share an aspiration that it should fully reflect a diverse UK, and I understand this to mean not just religious and ethnic diversity but socioeconomic and geographic diversity. We want this House to include younger Peers, Peers who come from all parts of the country, from different faiths, ethnicities and socioeconomic groups, and we want them to attend on a regular basis.
Yet without some creative thinking, this aspiration will remain just that, because the combined effect of our procedures and systems and the London property market militates against the ambition to include people from outside London and the south-east—and particularly those who are younger or from lower socioeconomic groups. Without access to accommodation in or around London, Members are not only subject to the exorbitant cost of overnight stays but cannot be at home to meet caring or family responsibilities, and it is only by living within striking distance of the House that Peers without additional means can combine regular attendance with the kind of job that will allow them to secure and sustain a mortgage or accrue a pension.
My Lords, I rise to agree largely with the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, and to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her excellent maiden speech. As has been said, we are very aware of and respect her political expertise; we do not fear it. We welcome her to this House. I am quite sure she qualifies as having “conspicuous merit”.
I have some questions on this Bill, which restricts the Prime Minister’s ability to appoint Peers with an effective size restriction, but does not impose the same restraint on the commission, which could nominate unlimited numbers to this House, effectively restricting the Prime Minister’s capacity if we were to keep to the 650. There is a minimum size of 20% but not a maximum. Why is that? Strangely, the Bill then excludes people who have supported a party in the past two years from being four out of the nine nominated to the commission. Why is that? This is a political House, and politics determines our Members. Why should an unelected, opaque committee run by the elite to perpetuate the elite be allowed to veto a person the elected PM, who is elected by MPs to get to that position, wants to be part of the legislature? That is how it will be seen by the public.
Although I wholeheartedly approve of a mechanism to ensure that your Lordships’ House contains people who remain committed to work in the House, I do not believe the Bill achieves it. All it requires is that nominees must show
“a willingness and capacity to contribute”
at the time of being introduced—as if anyone would say, “Oh, I don’t have the willingness or the capacity”. I am an employee of a financial services company. I chair four charities. I am on the board of five others. I chair a public company. I am a treasurer of the party. If anyone looked at my record, they would say, “Well, he doesn’t have capacity”, but I have an 82% voting record.
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There are two changes from the Bill I introduced two Sessions ago. The first is made in response to what was said in debate on the Bill, where concerns were raised that putting the appointments process in statute opened up the prospect of judicial review. I have therefore introduced an ouster clause. This is exceptional but, as with the ouster clause in the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act introduced by the Conservative Government in the last Parliament, justified in the context of the measure. It is not a qualified provision of the sort referred to by my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne in Monday’s debate. The clause meets the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, in the earlier debate; he cannot be here today, but he has authorised me to say that the inclusion of the clause fully meets his concerns and that the Bill now has his full support.
The second change derives from public expectations. The Bill provides that, if HOLAC recommends against a name being put forward to the monarch, the Prime Minister cannot put forward that name for two years. It is not a bar. The name could be resubmitted. However, it forces the Prime Minister to reconsider someone who is not judged suitable at the time.
Secondly, the Bill enshrines the core principles widely endorsed by Members on the size and composition of the House: that is, that it should be no larger than the House of Commons, that no one party should enjoy an absolute majority and that at least one-fifth of the House should comprise Cross-Bench Peers. These provisions enable the House to do what it does well. We are too large and we recognise that we need to reduce our numbers, but size is a second-order issue relative to the need to be seen to be effective in fulfilling our core functions, not least legislative scrutiny. Because no party in government enjoys an absolute majority, it works to persuade the House to accept the provisions of a Bill. In the Commons, there is a culture of assertion; in this House, there is a culture of justification. Ministers need to justify what they bring forward. Ensuring that a significant proportion of the House is independent of party contributes to the independence of the House and provides a route for people who have served in public office and have no party-political affiliation to join it. These in effect constitute goals for the Prime Minister. They provide a core organising framework.
Thirdly, the Bill provides that those nominated for membership must meet the criteria of “conspicuous merit” and demonstrate
“a willingness and capacity to contribute to the work of the House”.
In the light of the Delegated Powers Committee report, I am content to confine it to those provisions. The committee has drawn attention to some subsections of Clause 7—even though the clause is the same as in the 2022 Bill, to which the committee raised no objections.
When the Bill was debated in 2022, some Members thought the criterion of “conspicuous merit” was too broad; others, I know, think that it encapsulates what we need and what the public expect. If we are to do our job effectively—and, in effect, justify our existence—we need to maintain a membership characterised by experience and expertise. We also need to be seen to be bringing in Members who can make a distinctive contribution. In my view, generating guidance as to what constitutes “conspicuous merit” is not the most onerous of tasks as it essentially requires those nominated to show what they have contributed by way of experience or professional achievement. The experience may not be earth-shattering but may, by its nature, be distinctive. I am not opposed to generating a different wording; the key point is establishing a clear threshold of merit.
Fourthly, there is a need for transparency, requiring those party leaders putting forward names for peerages to inform HOLAC of the criteria and process employed for making the nomination. Injecting the fresh air of transparency is a further means of enhancing public trust in the process. When we debated the Bill last time, the then Leader of the Opposition, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, expressed doubts about this provision. Yet the Government have, in effect, conceded much of the principle by publishing citations for nominations. I commend them on that. This Bill pushes a little further in a way that serves to tackle public cynicism.
That brings me to the purpose of the Bill, which is the core reason for this debate. It is to establish the need to change the process by which people are nominated for peerages. It is necessary—not desirable but necessary —for the House to maintain its claim to legitimacy, both in how Members arrive and in the work they do. This House contributes to good law because of a unique combination of membership and procedures that distinguish it from the other place. It fulfils functions that the House of Commons may not have the time or the political will to fulfil. It is recognised as carrying out detailed scrutiny of legislation that enhances the quality of law in this country. However, the public derive their view of this House not from what it does but from how Members are selected and how some behave.
Enacting this Bill will enhance the work of the House through bringing in Members qualified to carry out its functions, and tackle the distrust that now engulfs the nominations process. As I said, the provisions are modest relative to what the public want. There is clear public support for nominations to be taken out of the hands of party leaders and given exclusively to HOLAC. The Wakeham commission recommended that most Peers be nominated by HOLAC. If we do not make changes now, more radical reform beckons.
This debate gives the House the opportunity to send out a clear signal as to the need for reform of the nomination process and a recognition that change is necessary to establish confidence in that process. The defence offered for the existing system, I submit, is not sustainable. In the debate on the previous Bill, we were told that the Prime Minister is the one who makes the nominations and is accountable to Parliament for those nominations. That is constitutionally correct. It is also a practical nonsense. When was the last time a Prime Minister was held accountable, in any meaningful form, for nominations to this House? The Prime Minister is not the one who suffers in any significant manner. It is this House that gets the political opprobrium. Under this Bill, the Prime Minister would remain the sole person responsible for submitting names to the monarch, but he or she would work within a process designed to ensure that those being nominated were, and were seen to be, highly qualified.
The other objection raised was that the Bill would give too much power to HOLAC, a body that is unelected and not accountable for its actions. I believe that is based on a false premise. HOLAC would be created by law and if it was seen to be acting in an inappropriate way, its role could be changed by law. In any event, the powers being conferred are limited and, I believe, proportionate. The only power will be one of restraint, requiring the Prime Minister to wait two years before being able to resubmit a name. The more significant challenge to the Bill is not that it gives too much power to HOLAC but that it confers too little.
We are now in March. This Bill is not going to make it to the statute book unless the Government facilitate its passage or take it over. I am not overly optimistic that the Minister will make such a promise. What we can do is use this opportunity to acknowledge the need to reform the process by which Members reach this place. We have to embrace change to enable us to do even better what we already do well and, even more crucial to this debate, demonstrate that we recognise public discontent with the process as it stands. Doing nothing is not a viable option. I beg to move.
Disappointingly, we have been heading in the wrong direction. Trust in politics has plummeted to its lowest score for 40 years. This is not a party-political point. Fewer than one in 10 people trust politicians, of any hue, to tell the truth—although your Lordships might take heart from being slightly more trusted than estate agents or journalists. But the grim statistics speak for themselves: only 28% say they have any confidence in the House of Commons. In focus groups, Prime Minister’s Questions—the one set-piece debate that the public watch—is seen to epitomise everything that is bad about politics. It is shouty, it is point-scoring, it is partisan and, frankly, it is rude.
Here in this place, I gather we like to do things differently. Certainly, from what I have seen so far, noble Lords are nothing if not courteous. However, the same poll revealed that confidence in the Lords was 8% lower than in the Commons, at just 20%. This is not something any of us can afford to ignore. If people lose faith in our institutions, our democracy weakens, and a weak democracy loses legitimacy. A recent poll suggested that more than half of Gen Z voters—that is, very young people—would rather be led by a strong dictator who does not bother with elections. Even if that is only half right, it is pretty scary. Our democratic institutions are facing the biggest sustained attack since the Second World War. This is urgent. It is harder for us here than it is in the other place; there, they are accountable to an electorate every few years and that sure focuses the mind. We are going to have to work a lot harder on building that positive connection. Like my noble friend Lady Chapman, I am from Darlington. I often ask myself, “What on earth would Darlington think?”. We must all keep asking such a question and we must make it our duty to know the answer.
How we are appointed here and, crucially, how the public perceive how and why we are appointed here, really matter too. It is just one part of the wider package of reform that people voted for when they voted for change so resolutely last July. The most significant change we could make, by some distance, is removing hereditary Peers. Nearly 70% of the public strongly support this move. That must be our main focus in reform.
There is also a lot that we can do to shine a light on the excellent work that is done here every day—day in, day out. Two-thirds of people say they know little or nothing about what happens here, and that is on us. That is why we need to shake things up and transform our reputation and performance. There is a lot at stake, and I am very much looking forward to playing my own role here in the future.
On the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, transparency, clarity and support for the reputation of having people nominated to this House in a way that is understandable and justifiable are really important, as is the intent of the Bill to reduce numbers to no greater than in the House of Commons.
If my noble friend the Chief Whip will forgive me—I do not think he will—I want to finish by saying that I think there is a cunning plan. The cunning plan is that we are kept here until the early hours of the morning until the numbers drop by dint of the Grim Reaper. It is time that, even within our self-regulation, we got a grip, because there is not a trade union leader in Britain who would put up with the way we do things in terms of timetabling. It is time now to take on board both the first speeches here this morning and get the reputation of politics back on track.
This second attempt to adopt a modest, practical and effective Bill is once again before us and I hope that it might go significantly further this time around.
There are of course issues in the Bill, not those referred to by the Delegated Powers Committee—which were a little over the top for a short Bill, but never mind—but others, which I hope we will be able to discuss in Committee. But this principle has to be right, and I am delighted to support the Bill in its Second Reading.
I return to my core point. I cannot accept that Members of this House should be appointed by unelected people, however great and good they are. They are not elected.
This means that we risk having to choose between socioeconomic diversity, age, regional representation and attendance. A London-based schoolteacher could make it work, but it is hard to imagine how a 35 year-old teacher from, say, Bolton, could actively participate in the House while holding down her job.
Noble Lords might argue that our membership already includes young Peers from outside London, and of course it does, but the size of the sample group is hardly statistically valid. They might also argue that life Peers have managed this conundrum since 1958—but times have changed. Without radical thinking about our procedures and systems, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has already said, and without taking any account of intersectionality, we risk a situation in which our efforts to increase diversity may have the opposite effect.
A final point, in the minutes I do not have left, is the potential for HOLAC to fulfil a skills audit function, tasked over a fixed period with assessing what skills the House will lose on the departure of the hereditary Peers and then actively recruiting an agreed number to bring those skills to the House. In many cases, departing Peers would be the strongest candidates and would rejoin in a transparent and open process. It might uncover some brilliant new Peers but its real value would be that it had the continued effectiveness and reputation of the House at its heart. That is the intent of the Bill, and it should underpin all our efforts to reform this House and its membership.
I am also unhappy with the effective veto the commission would have over the PM’s choice. Nominations frequently come from opposition party leaders, thankfully. There is one case about which I happen to know more than most and in which, in my opinion, HOLAC was possibly ill informed and possibly then gave an ill-judged view. I would feel very uncomfortable that a commission of unelected people, however eminent, could overrule the democratically elected Prime Minister of this country. Who are they to determine what is “conspicuous merit”? That is fine, but what does “conspicuous merit” mean? As we discussed on the hereditaries Bill this week, is it people who just served well in their job, be it in the Commons, the judiciary, the civil service or business, who are entitled to be in this House? I argue not. Anyone who is to be elevated must show they have contributed to society over and above their paid, salaried day job. That does not seem to be envisaged in this Bill. Most importantly, they must show that they are able to contribute in areas where greater contribution is needed.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, indicated, the Bill allows the commission itself to propose additional criteria without any approval from Parliament or government. This is a very dangerous open invitation to allow a private, secret, unelected group to determine who it thinks are appropriate Members of this House, when clearly that should remain with our Prime Minister —and, of course, other political leaders. The issue of judicial review, as eloquently explained by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, is still not determined. I welcome reform, but I do not believe this Bill addresses the real issues we face in this House.