HL Deb 30 March 1847 vol 91 cc614-5
LORD COLVILLE

moved— That there be laid before this House, A Copy of the Minutes of Proceedings which took place at Holyrood House, on the 17th Day of the present Month of March, at the Election of a Representative Peer of Scotland, to sit and vote in the House of Lords; together with the Titles under which the Peers respectively voted. He did not believe that there would be any objection to his Motion, and therefore it would be unnecessary for him to detain the House on it; and from what had fallen on a former occasion from various noble Lords, he was satisfied that this subject would ere long be taken up by abler hands than his. He did not mean by the present Motion to throw discredit upon the body to whom the matter related; but he begged to observe that, while due care was taken both in England and Ireland that no person should exercise the privileges of a Peer without producing sufficient proof that he was entitled so to do, in Scotland there was no such precaution. All that was necessary on occasions of the kind to which his Motion had reference was, that a man should assert himself to be a Representative Peer, and take the oaths of supremacy and abjuration. This was a state of matters that ought to be remedied; and he trusted that in what he was now doing he was only the pioneer to clear the way for others who would, after Easter, take the subject into their more able hands. He saw in a Scotch paper that morning an allusion to the proceedings which had taken place in that House on Friday last, and in which it was stated that "some conversation arose on a statement made by Lord Colville, of Culross, that a fradulent assumption of his title had been made by an individual who had voted as Lord Colville, of Ochiltree, at the last election." Now, it would be in the recollection of the House, that he had stated that he was no more personally connected with the matter than any other Peer of Scotland. That the person who voted on the late occasion called himself by the title of Lord Colville, of Ochiltree, whereas his (the noble Lord's) title was Lord Colville, of Culross. He never said that it was an assumption of his own title; but he complained of it on public grounds, and as a matter in which not merely the Peerage of Scotland, but that House and the whole country, were interested.

LORD CAMPBELL

was glad the noble Lord had brought the matter under the notice of the House; and he trusted that the subject would be pressed on the attention of their Lordships until the whole question was set at rest. It was a question not merely affecting the Scotch Peers, but it was a matter deeply affecting the public generally, for many persons were often defrauded by the improper and illegal assumption of the title of Scotch Peers by those who had not the slightest right to them. He hoped when the returns were laid on the Table, that the noble Lord would follow the Motion up by moving for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the whole subject.

LORD BROUGHAM

agreed that that was the proper course to pursue. As the custom at present stood, a mere mendicant might go into Holyrood House, and on the same claim could vote at the election of a Scotch Peer, and thus the result of most important questions might be influenced in that House.

The EARL of ROSEBERY

agreed that the law was defective on this subject, but he thought that it would be better not to go into the question until the returns were before the House.

Motion agreed to.