Member

I always sought to be honest with this House and I attached the highest importance to the good of this House, across this House. I referred to this matter on the Floor when I was Leader, and it was not popular, I can tell you, with some of my Commons colleagues. I found it a shameful position. I particularly regret that, when I requested support for a short Bill to correct this, it was rejected at the top of the then Conservative Government. When I sought alternative means to address it, within the rules of the allowances payable in your Lordships’ House, it could not in the end be agreed, as I understood it, because of difficulties at some levels in the then Labour Opposition.