INTERPRETATION AND SHORT TITLE (Hansard, 3 March 1999)

§ Sir Patrick Cormack
I beg to move amendment No. 47, in page 2, line 4, after 'peerage', insert— 'means members of the peerages of Scotland, England, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom other than those created under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 or the Life Peerages Act 1958, and '. The amendment is simple and clear. We tabled it for one reason only: in the Bill, the whole aim of which is to remove the voting and sitting rights of hereditary peers, there is no adequate definition of what an hereditary peer is. In their desire to produce the shortest Bill possible, the Government have cut every corner in sight. I hope that they will be able to accept the amendment without hesitation, to allow the Committee to move on to the more substantive new clauses. If there is some technical deficiency, I hope that the Minister will point it out and promise to remedy it and table a Government amendment. It is nonsense that in a Bill dealing with the hereditary peerage there should be no adequate definition of that phrase.

§ Mr. Forth
On reading the amendment and the Peerage Act 1963, the question arises my mind whether reference should be made in the Bill to peeresses in their own right, as in that Act, which takes care to make reference also to Scottish and Irish peerages, and whether there might be a problem if no such reference is made. We have to be careful to cover all the possibilities.
When I take visitors into the Lobby of the Lords, I always draw attention to the quaint notice that goes through all the categories of peers, mentioning peeresses in their own right. That important category should not be excluded.

§ Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South)
Surely the word "hereditary" means any title inherited, whether the inheritor is male or female.

§ Mr. Forth
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is right, and I am almost reassured by what he says. I will be fully reassured when the Minister tells me that my anxiety is completely unfounded.

§ Mr. Hoon
Notwithstanding the eloquence of the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack), I shall have to disappoint him yet again.
There is no doubt what is meant by the phrase "hereditary peerage". We do not anticipate that it will lead to legal proceedings, challenging what is perfectly straightforward English, and there is no need for any further definition. There is no ambiguity. The problem 1169 with the amendment, certainly as drafted, is that it attempts to define hereditary peerage negatively, by reference to what it is not, and that is no greater help to a precise definition than what is contained in the Bill. The Bill has the merit of being in plain English. It is clear to everyone what is meant by hereditary peerage and to introduce such an amendment would produce the ambiguity and difficulty that the hon. Gentleman is anxious to avoid.

§ Mr. Grieve
I seek clarification on the position of that small category, hereditary peers of the first creation who hold peerages that may pass down by right of heredity. What is their precise status? They are peers, not by hereditary right but through having been created peers themselves. It is only for their successors that the hereditary right exists. How does that square with the definition of hereditary peers in the Bill?

§ Mr. Hoon
It is not necessary to go into the definition to answer the hon. Gentleman's question, because those peers are clearly hereditary peers. The peers of first creation have been told that they will have the opportunity, should they be interested, in taking a life peerage to put them into the same position as other members of the life peerage with the ability to participate in proceedings in the other place. That is an elegant solution to the problem that the hon. Gentleman raises.
I was about to say that I recommend to the Committee that it reject the amendment.

§ Sir Patrick Cormack
We are not absolutely persuaded by the Minister's reply, but the Committee has other business to move to. In the light of the Minister's reply, we shall have further discussions and a similar amendment may be tabled in the other place. However, for the purposes of this evening, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.