Hereditary peers are Tony Blair’s unfinished business

It was 22 years ago that the New Labour government began to reform the House of Lords, writes John Rentoul

Peers debate the House of Lords bill (PA)

Bruce Grocott used to teach the British constitution at the Birmingham College of Commerce, now Birmingham City University. Then he became an MP and discovered that it didn’t work the way he taught it at all.

He was then parliamentary private secretary to Tony Blair during Blair’s first term as prime minister, which gave Grocott access to the inner workings of power at the highest level. Thus, he had a small part in one of the great dramas of the new government: the struggle to abolish hereditary peers.

Blair struck a deal with the Conservative peers – behind the back of William Hague, the then-Tory leader – allowing hereditary peerages to be expelled from the House of Lords on the condition that just 92 of them could stay.

Thus the upper house has remained, frozen at a moment of great but incomplete reform. Two of the 92 are appointed by the Queen; every time one of the remaining 90 dies or retires, they are replaced by one of the strangest sets of by-elections in democratic history.

Fifteen are office holders, who are elected by the whole House of Lords; but whenever one of the remaining 75 goes, the vacancy is filled by a vote among the hereditary peers (members and non-members of the House of Lords alike) belonging to the party of the former peer. There are 42 Tories, 28 independents, called crossbenchers, three Liberal Democrats and two Labour – Lord Grantchester and Viscount Stansgate, better known as Stephen Benn, son of Tony.

Meanwhile, one of the Labour life peers in the House of Lords is Lord Grocott, who left the Commons for the Lords in 2001. And on Friday, he made his fourth attempt in five years to complete Blair’s unfinished business, by getting rid of the remaining hereditaries from the chamber.

He presented a private member’s bill to abolish by-elections for hereditary peers. It would be the softest possible reform, allowing the hereditaries to fade away as their vacancies went unfilled. He made all the obvious arguments, including that none of the hereditaries remaining in the Lords was female, and rebutted some of the obvious responses from Tory peers. One of them suggested that, to be consistent, Lord Grocott should propose the abolition of the monarchy – he replied that the monarch, quite rightly, has no say over the drafting and passing of legislation.

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Several Tory peers objected that Lord Grocott was trying to renege on the 1999 deal agreed by Blair and Viscount Cranborne, now the Seventh Marquess of Salisbury. Lord Grocott’s blunt response was that the 1999 deal was “made under duress”. He said that Lord Salisbury “has told us that that deal was made under the threat to the Labour government of destroying our legislative programme”.

Sadly, Lord Grocott’s bill will be filibustered by Tory peers, just as his previous attempts were. But Lord Grocott said: “I am a lifelong season ticket holder at Stoke City, so I am used to lost causes – but you do win occasionally. Sooner or later, I will win with this, I am quite sure about that.”

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator