King’s Speech

Lord Booth Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Booth (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, as I rise to make my maiden speech today, I want to add my congratulations to the noble and learned Lord opposite on his excellent speech earlier. I start by offering my thanks for the welcome that I have received from your Lordships across the political divide. I thank all our dedicated staff who keep us in order, who feed us, who are custodians of the traditions of this place and who keep us safe. They are true public servants. I also thank my noble friends Lady Pidding, who cannot be in her place today, and Lord Sharpe of Epsom, who introduced me to this House. They are friends, both having served as my predecessors in the role I currently hold as chairman of the National Conservative Convention, the voluntary part of the Conservative Party. My noble friend Lady Pidding was in charge in 2015 and my noble friend Lord Sharpe was in charge of the general election in 2019. The conclusions of their tenures were considerably more successful than my tenure in 2024. In fact, such was the outstanding result for my party in 2019 that my noble friend Lord Sharpe may well have heeded his own words to go out on the lash. I also want to praise all the hard-working volunteers of the National Conservative Convention and, indeed, all political volunteers across the divide, because political volunteers of all parties are the lifeblood of our democracy.

I wish our new Government well, for to do otherwise would be to wish ill to our nation. While we may disagree on the how, surely we agree on what we are here for: the betterment of the lives and life chances of the British people.

My life journey began in the coalfields of the north-east in Houghton-le-Spring, and I am proud to have Houghton-le-Spring as the geographical part of my title. I am very much a product of Houghton, where I was born and where my father’s family had been shop- keepers for four generations. I was brought up behind the shop counter, learning from an early age the value of hard work and learning to be part of a community. Like any good northerner, I can be blunt and to the point and have an irreverent sense of humour. My parents were aspirational for me, and aspiration is something that we must encourage for children across our nation. From Houghton, I went the University of Essex, and my first job was here in the Palace of Westminster as a researcher for a Member of the other place, so my return here is like coming home. In between, I ran my own retail businesses and then a small company designing and exporting spectacle frames across the globe. The small business sector is something I know about and hope to champion in this House.

Finally, I want to thank the most important person in my life for allowing me to spend time and effort volunteering in political life and for being on the journey with me. My wonderful husband Kelvin is here today and has been with me for the past 21 years. I find it wrong that in this House same-sex legal partners and partners of Baronesses get no courtesy title, and what recourse is there for that? In Kelvin’s case, maybe he could self- declare as a woman, put on a frock and, in the words of “Little Britain”, shout, “I’m a lady”, but I do not think that will happen. I encourage the Minister to do what he said in his maiden speech and listen and—I reflect on his own words—to reflect changes in our society, so I hope the Government might eventually address this issue.

I now turn to some of the content in this King’s Speech, and I shall try to maintain tradition by not being controversial. However, I believe it is right to question proposals and ask whether they have been thoroughly thought through and about the potential for unintended consequences of good intentions. I refer particularly to the proposal to remove our hereditary colleagues. The composition of this House was slowly changed with the passage of the Life Peerages Act 1958, some 66 years ago. If that Act had been a person, it would have now reached pensionable age. It irrevocably changed the make-up of this House, but over a long timeframe. The overwhelming majority of us are here today because of that Act. It is the way of our unwritten constitution that a slow evolution occurs. I am sure that the authors of the 1958 Act did not envisage its consequences, but I think it worked out well. The House of Lords Act 1999 then reduced the hereditary Peers to 92 in number. Since joining this House in March, I have been impressed by the work of noble Lords who are not lifers but who are here by birth, and by the expertise, knowledge and commitment they bring to the work of this House. It seems unfair and wrong that they are to be dismissed. I ask the Benches opposite whether they can look at their friends and colleagues and say, “You’re fired”. I ask the government Benches to reflect carefully on these proposals, because in this country we should value public service given over a lifetime. I thank noble Lords for listening.