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Lord Grocott (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 3 March 2025

Debate

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I will just make a couple of points. First, we are not abolishing hereditary Peers; we are abolishing the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Secondly, 26 years ago we removed 667 hereditary Peers and as far as I can judge, that has not had a devastating impact on the monarchy; in fact, the monarchy seems to have survived quite well. Thirdly, the fundamental difference between the hereditary principle as applied to sitting and voting here, and the hereditary principle as applied to the monarchy—like my noble friend Lord Brennan, I support the constitutional monarchy very strongly—is that if the monarch started to do what hereditary Peers in this House do, which is to express, as they are quite within their rights to do, detailed arguments in favour of one political party or another, I do not think the monarchy would last very long. There is a fundamental difference between the political role of hereditaries in this House, and the wholly significant and important non-political, head-of-state role of the monarchy at a national level.

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