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Lord Strathclyde (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 December 2024

Debate

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Contribution

It is wonderful that some Peers know who the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, is but not everybody does. Would his name appear on the list or not? I can let noble Lords into a little secret —it would not. As my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition asked: is this about numbers? I can see the attraction for the Government to get rid of several dozen supporters of opposition parties or Cross-Benchers, but why remove a cohort who are generally committed, younger and harder-working, rather than picking those who turn up very rarely? I listened carefully to the suggestions made by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. Is not the reality that this is a nakedly partisan Bill, whose key aim is to reduce the number of the Government’s opponents in the Lords and throw some red meat to extreme Labour? For those who have borne a grudge against the Lords for most of the last 100 years, the temptation to remove 45 Conservatives is just too much to resist. Is this not the real motivation behind the Bill? The Prime Minister will then be able to control who comes into the Lords, taking control of the Lords as much as he controls the House of Commons.

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