Reading Clerk

Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Laming

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, on behalf of my colleagues in the Cross-Bench group I associate myself with the warm and very well deserved tributes already paid to Rhodri Walters. Throughout his career Rhodri displayed a quite remarkable understanding and knowledge of Parliament. Among his many responsibilities he was the clerk to a number of Select Committees. They were far too many to record but I mention just two of what might be called rather controversial Bills. The first became the Constitutional Reform Act, which, among other things, created the role of the Lord Speaker. The second, and more recent, was the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. Neither task could possibly be described as being straightforward. The House liked to give Rhodri a real challenge.

Rhodri was a real professional in all that he did, and one who was solidly committed to the service of this House. He can be rightly proud of what he achieved. He takes with him our warmest good wishes and our warm and sincere thanks.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I want to associate these Benches with all the remarks made so far. I think that Rhodri Walters introduced more than 200 Members into the House, including the rare distinction of introducing the Archbishop of Canterbury twice—first as Bishop of Durham and then as Archbishop of Canterbury. He may have been able to deal with the Letters Patent in his sleep, except that when a Bishop comes along he is liable to trip up the Reading Clerk as it is a different form of words.

Perfectionist that Rhodri was, three or four weeks ago, when the first of the current flood of new Bishops arrived, he said to me, with a fallen face, “I don’t think I have got it quite right”. I do not think that anyone else had noticed anything other than perfection because he was a perfectionist—a perfectionist in the parliamentary choir and in every aspect of his life. There was always a particular resonance between the Bishops and Rhodri because he is used to looking after bishops as he is a church warden of one of the parishes here in London. As a good church warden, he forgave us our sins when we did not do exactly as we were told.