House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I shall try again. I support these amendments because, unlike the opinion expressed by other noble Lords, I do not consider that the Bill represents a modest change. It is a very significant change. As my noble friend Lord Hague said in his speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in February 1998,

“The Government is now embarking on what is potentially the most damaging step of all— removing the main independent element in the House of Lords by excluding the hereditary peers. Mr Blair’s justification is his dislike of the hereditary principle, although he sees no contradiction”—

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

If I heard the noble Viscount correctly, he said that this would remove the largest independent sector but I thought the Cross-Bench Peers were independent.

[Viscount Trenchard]

The noble Lord is correct in saying that the Cross-Benchers are independent of the political parties but they are nevertheless appointed to this House by much the same process as Peers from other parties are nowadays appointed.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

That is absolutely not correct. I will tell the noble Viscount how I was appointed to this House: I was asked if I would care to have my name looked at but to do that I, along with 400 other people, had to submit my name to the House of Lords Appointments Commission. There was then a rigorous process of weeding out. I finally went to a long and exhaustive interview before my name was put before the Prime Minister and Her Majesty the Queen.