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XIV: THE HOUSE OF LORDS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2019

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Extract

The House of Lords when I took my seat shortly after my father's death of pneumonia in 1931 – which took place a few years before the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics – was a very different place from what it has become over 60 years later.

Type
Primary source material
Information
Royal Historical Society Camden Fifth Series , Volume 57: THE RISE OF LABOUR AND THE FALL OF EMPIRE: THE MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HARE, FIFTH EARL OF LISTOWEL , July 2019 , pp. 211 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2019 

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References

592 Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe (1858–1945), Liberal peer and minister; Liberal leader in the House of Lords, 1908–1923 and 1936–1944; secretary of state for India, 1910–1915; and secretary of state for the colonies, 1908–1910.

593 Oliver Kitson, 4th Baron Airedale (1915–1996), Liberal peer, deputy chairman of committees, House of Lords, 1961–1996; deputy speaker 1962–1996.

594 In 2016–2017 the average daily attendance was 484 and the number of sitting days 141.

595 This Act enabled peers to be appointed for life.

596 In 1950.

597 It was only possible for Lord Hume[sic] to become Prime Minister because he relinquished his title to sit in the Commons. Lord Stansgate (Tony Benn) was the first hereditary peer to disclaim his peerage in 1963. Alec Douglas-Home, 14th earl of Home followed suit not long afterwards.

598 Richard Onslow, 5th earl of Onslow (1876–1945), Conservative peer and minister: lord chairman of committees, 1931–1944.

599 Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 6th earl of Donoughmore (1875–1948), Conservative peer and minister, lord chairman of committees, 1911–1931.

600 Frederick Banbury, 1st Baron Banbury of Southam (1850–1936), Conservative peer.

601 Dudley Aman, 1st Baron Marley (1884–1952), Labour peer, Labour chief whip in the House of Lords, 1930–1937.

602 The Parliament Act 1911. The law came about as a consequence of the political crises between the Liberal Government and the Conservative-dominated House of Lords. The Act effectively ended the veto power of the Lords and replaced it with a delaying power of two years on bills. This was reduced to one year with the Parliament Act 1949.

603 Listowel was a parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries from November 1950 till October 1951.

604 George Brown, later Lord George-Brown (1914–1985), trades unionist and later Labour MP and minister. Brown was not secretary of National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, but did do some work with agricultural workers through the Transport and General Workers’ Union and sat on the War Agricultural Executive. He also served as a parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, 1947–1951; later first secretary of state, 1964–1966; foreign secretary, 1966–1968; and deputy leader of the Labour Party, 1960–1970.

605 Edward Russell, 26th Baron de Clifford (1907–1982). In 1935 Lord de Clifford was involved in a car collision, which resulted in the death of the other driver. As a peer he could only be tried in the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor, the 1st Viscount Hailsham, as Lord High Steward, presided over the trial which delivered an acquittal. This was the last such trial and the Criminal Justice Act 1948 among other measures abolished the right of peers to be tried in the Lords.

606 William Lewis, 3rd Baron Merthyr (1901–1977), lord chairman of committees, 1957–1965.

607 Francis Pakenham, 7th earl of Longford (1905–2001), Labour peer and minister; leader of the House of Lords, 1964–1968, and secretary of state for the colonies, 1965–1966.

608 Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington (1919–2018), Conservative peer and minister; Conservative leader in the House of Lords, 1963–1970 and 1974–1979, and foreign secretary, 1979–1982.

609 Without dissent.

610 The seat of the lord chancellor, and since 2006 that of the lord speaker in the chamber of the House of Lords.

611 Thomas de Grey, 2nd Baron Walsingham (1748–1818), MP, peer and minister; lord chairman of committees, 1794–1814.

612 Morys Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare (1919–2005), Conservative peer; lord chairman of committees, 1976–1992.

613 Later King George IV.

614 Priscilla Buchan, Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie (1915–1978), Conservative MP and later peeress and minister; minister of state in the Scottish Office, 1970–1972; deputy chair of committees, 1974–1977; and chair of the select committee on European Communities, 1974–1977.

615 The House of Lords Act 1999 removed hereditary peers from being able to sit in the Lords with the exception of 92 hereditary peers elected among their number and those holding the offices of earl marshal and lord great chamberlain.

616 Michael Foot (1913–2010), Labour MP and minister; leader of the opposition and leader of the Labour Party, 1980–1983.

617 Enoch Powell (1912–1998), Conservative MP (and later an Ulster Unionist MP) and minister; financial secretary to the Treasury, 1957–1958.

618 The War Crimes Act 1991.

619 Reforms since 2005 have seen the roles and powers of the lord chancellor change. There is now a secretary of state for justice and a Ministry of Justice; a lord speaker to preside over the Lords. The positions of the lord chancellor and justice secretary have been held by the same person recently, who came from the House of Commons.