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

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Fowler

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I should inform the Committee that if Amendment 11 is agreed to, I am unable to call Amendments 17 to 33A by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I query the terms of the amendment. What is behind it? Every time we debate this piece of legislation, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, appear, like woolly mammoths from the permafrost, with a series of amendments. As I understand this amendment, the noble Lord wants any excepted hereditary Peer to be younger than the average age of Members of the House of Lords. He will correct me if I have got that wrong.

The noble Lord set a fine example himself. As my noble friend Lord Grocott indicated, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has spent no fewer than 56 years as a Member in your Lordships’ House. As I understand it, he took his place in the House on his 21st birthday. I hope he does not think me rude if I say that, by the look of him, that was some time ago. It was, in fact, in June 1962 and he has been here ever since. In that year, as I am sure some of my noble friends well remember, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones cut their first records and Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. In 1962, I was a humble lance-corporal in the Royal Engineers, yet at that time the noble Lord was studying the wine list in the Members’ Dining Room. He is thoroughly institutionalised.

Although the motives for the amendment are creditable, the Committee deserves a fuller explanation of the thinking behind it. After all, he set a fine example himself, being scarcely out of his teens. Indeed, following the untimely death of his father, had the rules of your Lordships’ House been different in 1962, he would have taken his seat even earlier; he had to wait until his 21st birthday to do so. We are due some clarification from him about the terms and the meaning of this amendment, otherwise—perish the thought—we might think that this is just yet another attempt to delay this piece of legislation.