Hereditary Peers: By-elections

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s Bill had an unopposed Second Reading on 8 September and on 23 March useful progress was made in going through the amendments. The Government are prepared to allocate yet further time for the Committee stage of the Bill—a hospitality not normally extended to a Private Member’s Bill, as the noble Lord, himself a former Chief Whip and custodian of Fridays, will know. The use to which the House puts that extra time is a matter for him and for the House.

So far as the by-election is concerned, it will contain, I suspect, the most sophisticated and discerning electorate, comprising 31 Cross-Bench hereditary Peers.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, should we not merely wish the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, well, but remember that he was the grandson of one of the greatest peacetime Prime Ministers? As a strong supporter of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I ask that we reduce at least some of the absurdity of this by-election by allowing all Peers to vote.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend will know that that is a matter not for legislation but for the Standing Orders of the House. If the House wanted so to do, it could do that without the noble Lord’s Bill or any action by the Government. It is entirely a matter for the Standing Orders of the House, as my noble friend Lord Cope mentioned in one of our debates.