HL Deb 10 November 1971 vol 325 cc376-8

2.37 p.m.

LORD MAELOR

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask the Leader of the House what steps were taken to ensure that all Lords who voted on October 28, has taken the Oath.]

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE)

My Lords, none, except the usual ones. To vote without taking the Oath in each Parliament is a statutory offence, as is well known to the Members of both Houses of Parliament. No noble Lord voted on Thursday, October 28, without having taken the Oath during the present Parliament.

LORD MAELOR

My Lords, I want to thank the noble Earl, the Leader of the House, for the Answer, but is he aware that many of those backwoodsmen had no idea where to go when they were here? One of them asked me how he could vote with the Tories, and I said, If you follow George-Brown you will be right". But, seriously, I want to ask the noble Earl whether a spectacle such as we had on October 28 does not bring this place into disrepute.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Why?

LORD MAELOR

I am sure it must do. I do not know why you did not use the Royal Gallery or the corridor for voting on that particular night. It must have brought this House into great disrepute.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, these are matters of opinion. It was my feeling that on that occasion the House of Lords distinguished itself by the biggest vote which it has ever recorded in its history, and I was struck by the massive testimony of the feelings of your Lordships' House. More seriously, however, I have been through the Division Lists for that day extremely carefully, and as a result I can inform the noble Lord, if he is interested in these matters, that there were only 30 Members of your Lordships' House who voted in that Division who are not regular attenders in this House.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl this question? I take it that in going through the lists he checked that nobody who had been granted leave of absence voted. Will he recall that there were one or two applications? I know that he insisted on maintaining the rules, or the custom, of the House in accordance with the Standing Order, but it would reassure me if I knew that no one voted—perhaps in ignorance of the rules—who had leave of absence. Is the noble Earl also aware that his Chief Whip sometimes manages a bit of "overkill"?

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, in response to the last "dig" of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, all I can say is that there was no Whip from this side of the House on that very large vote. My noble friend the Chief Whip did, however—and he underlined this—ask as many of our supporters as possible to come to record their vote, either way. That was spelled out quite specifically. I can give the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, for whose intervention I am grateful, the assurance which he has requested of me. No Peer either attended or voted that day without having previously taken the Oath; and, by the same token, neither did any Peer attend or vote who was on leave of absence.

VISCOUNT MONCK

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend, with great respect, although I know he was not educated in the best school in the world, whether he has noticed a grammatical error in line 2 of this Question?

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, it had escaped my notice. I am grateful to the noble Viscount, who is so much better educated than I, for drawing my attention to this disparity. On the point about voting, if there are any noble Lords who are worried about the penalties they might incur through inadvertence, I would remind them of the fact that there was a noble Lord in 1906 who had run up a theoretical total of £8,500-worth of penalties for erring in the respect which is, wrongly, worrying the noble Lord, Lord Maelor—and he happened to be a Minister.