House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Viscount Astor Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

But it is worth knowing the names of all those hereditaries who have been working their socks off in this place for years and will be thrown out. There is the Earl of Leicester, the Earl of Lindsay, Lord Londesborough, Lord Lucas, the Earl of Lytton, Lord Mancroft, Lord Meston, the Duke of Montrose, Lord Mountevans, Lord Moynihan —whom I see in his place in front of me, and who has already been rightly praised—Lord Ravensdale, Lord Reay, Earl Russell, Lord Sandhurst, the Earl of Stair, Lord Thurlow, Viscount Thurso, who has already spoken —I think that he welcomed his own demise—and Lord Trefgarne, also a former Minister, Viscount Trenchard, Lord Trevethin and Oaksey, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and finally, the Duke of Wellington.

I make no apology for reading out those names; I have not taken very long to do so—less than six minutes. If the Committee is going to go ahead with ejecting hereditaries, we simply need to know all of those colleagues, the work they have been doing in this House and the expertise we will lose. We will not only lose their expertise but be doing them a disservice by rejecting all the work they have done over the last few years by saying, “You’re just a hereditary, you can now be slung out.” I think that is an insult to the hard work they have been doing.

[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, I knew that I was unimportant when my noble friend Lord Blencathra omitted me from his list, but now it has been confirmed. I am very grateful to him for doing that. As we approach the dinner hour, it is obviously time for very long speeches, and I intend for my speech to be very long and to cover a number of hugely important issues. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Soames on his amendment, because it would actually affect me, as a former Minister of the Crown, by inserting proposed new subsection (A1)(a). I thank my noble friend and support his amendment.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

I observe briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that he is partial in his recollection of the career of the great Raymond Baxter. The other programme that he was famous for was called, “Tomorrow’s World”. I was an avid watcher of that programme as a young boy, and I never remember a prediction on “Tomorrow’s World” that, 50 years later, people would still be sitting in Parliament by virtue of the hereditary principle. On his list and his partial recollection of Raymond Baxter, I point out to the noble Lord that we live in tomorrow’s world, not yesterday’s.