European Parliament (House of Lords Disqualification) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, was asking me the question. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, answered it admirably, if I may say so without seeking to flatter him unduly. We just have to disagree on this. The Government’s view is that, arguably, Standing Orders would not be enough and would not be taken into account by the European authorities in determining whether we are compliant with EU law. That is our view. Far from imposing a new burden, the regulations before us today offer a concession to life Peers to take up office as MEPs, given that they would otherwise be barred from doing so. From a policy perspective, the Government’s position is that life Peers should have the opportunity to take up such a mandate if that is their wish. It is a matter for them. Without these regulations they would not be able to do so. Our intention with these regulations was to provide a simple, pragmatic and interim solution to a specific and pressing problem. We want to deal with this issue in the context of Lords reform. Under any such reform it should at least be possible for Peers to resign their seats if they wish to do so. Let me say a word about hereditary Peers, which is one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, justifiably made about what he saw as defects. We have been asked why we have not treated hereditary Peers in the same way as life Peers, and have pointed out that in this House we are all equal—it is a House of Peers. But we are not all equal in how we have arrived in this House. Certain hereditary Peers, such as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, sometimes tease the rest of us by suggesting that their means of arrival is superior to ours. The consequences for a hereditary Peer standing for the European Parliament would not be quite the same as the consequences for a life Peer doing so. The House of Lords Act 1999 provides that 90 hereditary Peers should be excepted from its effects, together with the two hereditary office holders. At the time the Act was passed, considerable stress was laid by the House on the point that 90 should be the guaranteed number, not the maximum. However, a vacancy can be caused only by a death. There can be no by-election unless there is a death. If the bar on sitting and voting that these regulations apply to life Peers were extended to hereditary Peers, the result would be that the number of hereditary Peers able to take part in the proceedings of the House could potentially be reduced below 90 for the whole period of the European parliamentary term of five years. Further, let us consider the circumstances in which the hereditary Peers came into the House. They took a deliberate decision to stand for election. They achieved their status at the expense of many others with whom they were in direct competition. There are well over 100 names on the list of Peers registered to stand in any election, and at the by-election last year to replace the late Lord Mowbray and Stourton there were 43 candidates. In these circumstances, it is not entirely proper to suggest that an excepted Peer, having been elected to this House, should be permitted to turn his back on it for up to five years at a time. If I was in any doubt about this line of argument, particularly about whether there would be any upset from hereditary Peers if their numbers were to be reduced in this way, all I have to do to convince myself that I am right is to remember the response of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, just a few minutes ago when it was suggested that no one would really care if there were fewer than 90 hereditary Peers. That is why hereditary Peers are not included in this order.