HL Deb 17 March 1975 vol 358 cc515-20

3.52 p.m.

Debate resumed.

Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to me to join in the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Cudlipp, on his maiden speech, forceful and traditionalist as it was. It is a remarkable tribute to the powers of your Lordships' House that almost our newest Member should now be the arch guardian of our traditions. 1 hope that the noble Lord, whose voice has been heard directly or indirectly throughout the length and breadth of this land, and even far beyond, will not now be disappointed that he might be exchanging a much larger audience for a smaller one. I should like to assure him that in his future contributions, to which we look forward with such pleasure, he will at least have an equally appreciative audience. I do not like to say that he will be exchanging quantity for quality, but we shall at least offer appreciation and we look forward to hearing him again.

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Raglan, who I think cannot be accused of trying to throw away the inherited traditions of this House. Surely this is the last place where we should despise tradition? What I regard as somewhat unfair inferences have been drawn from his very modest proposal— such as that he proposes to reduce our life to an equalitarian monotony in which we should all live the same way and not have any gaiety, or any pageantry or celebrations. This is not at all the case. We all recognise that this ceremony has a very long history behind it— a long and rather complex history— and we should not like to treat that history with con-tempt. This House is not contemptuous of history; it would have been dead and abolished long ago if it had been. But we must make some moves with the times. We recognise that for each new Peer the ceremony of Introduction is a great occasion; an occasion for celebration. We welcome that, and that we should like to continue. Those of us who were the first of the Life Peers, and the first to have this experience in that capacity, appreciate that feeling especially. I personally am not particularly concerned about the time occupied, although it may get a little tedious. I know of only one other institution which is as profligate in its use of time as this one—I need hardly say that I refer to the other place, which I think runs us very close in that respect, if it does not even beat us.

It is not so much a question of the time; but it is also true, as one or two noble Lords have said, that as this ceremony is repeated and repeated noble Lords sometimes get a little tired of it. This means that when a new Peer arrives, probably the audience is composed in far too great a proportion of those who are merely his personal friends or who have had some contact with him, and he does not get the general welcome from the community as a whole that we would wish him to have, merely because their Lordships get a little tired of repeating endlessly this welcome for people whom they do not know. If we had a rather shorter ceremony, or perhaps even no ceremony at all, or something much simpler, we should all be more likely to come in, take our part, and, as we would wish, welcome our new colleagues as they arrive.

We need to recognise that all pageantry teeters on a very narrow brink between the impressive and the ridiculous. My noble friend Lord Raglan feels, as I and a number of my colleagues feel— that this ceremony teeters very dangerously on that brink. There is one point where I should say that it actually falls over into the abyss of the ludicrous. Here I agree with my noble friend Lord Raglan when referring to the point at which we engage in what I like to call the "hat work". The "hat work" is not creditable to our image. We are a serious body; we are engaged, we suppose, in doing public work which we think to be of some importance. But we do not want to present an image to the world of an archaic survival engaged only in rituals which have long since lost any significance or meaning. In fact we did not know the origins of any of them— at least most of us did not— until my noble friend Lord Raglan told us about them. There-fore, my Lords, in the interests of out image and in the interests of keeping on the right side of the dangers of the ludicrous, I would support my noble friend.

3.57 p.m.

Lord ALPORT

My Lords, I should like to joint the previous speakers in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Cudlipp, on his maiden speech. As I listened to him, I felt one of three factors might be responsible for the line which he took. The first factor was that your Lordships' House had exercised with lightning rapidity its well-known powers of persuasion and traction and had brought him to understand our magic, to which my noble friend referred, within a matter of days after his entry to the House. Secondly, perhaps, that he was on the wrong Benches and should have been on this side of the House; or, thirdly, that he was pulling your Lord-ships' collective leg. Anyhow, I join with others in saying how very much I look forward to hearing him again and reading tomorrow the account of his speech, and possibly of this debate, in one or other of the organs of the British Press.

My Lords, I support the Motion and I support the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, on this matter. When we are considering the preservation of our traditions, ceremony and otherwise, we should be careful about not only what appeals to us— and appeals to the emotional approach of the kind to which my noble friend Lord Denham referred— but also how it appears to people outside this House. I fear— and I have said this on more than one occasion—that we have a somewhat different view of the traditions and of the practices of this House from those who are the spectators from outside.

I can give my own view only of the ceremony in which I took part—unlike the proposer of the Motion or the mover of the Amendment—together with a large number of your Lordships during previous years. I felt ridiculous at one or two points during the ceremony, and I believe that, to those who were onlookers, I looked ridiculous. I do not think it right that your Lordships should allow part of this ceremony— however old may be the tradition— which has ceased to have the significance today which it had in the past, to provide a spectacle for those who are only too keen to denigrate, criticise and belittle the actions and work of your Lordships' House. We are not, my Lords, whatever my noble friend may say, simply a charade on a par with the Changing of the Guard, or the Horse Guards up the road. We are the second legislative Chamber of the British Parliament, and we must retain, in every way we can, not only our dignity and our traditions, but the respect which people feel for us outside.

I would go a long way with the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, in amending the present procedure of Introduction. 1 would certainly keep the robes, at any rate for the Peer being Introduced, be-cause not all of us— though perhaps I speak for myself— are endowed with the personal dignity which a robe of that kind helps to enhance. Secondly, I would keep the Herald because he is a magnificent figure in any ceremonial. Your Lordships may remember the tabards of the Heralds of the Holy Roman Empire in the Hofburg in Vienna—marvellous creations, representing the history of the great Empire, the dead, stuck away in glass cases in one of the rooms of the Palace. But here the Herald is part of our living tradition and should be seen on as many occasions as possible.

Obviously it is right that the Roll should be signed. Obviously, it is essential that the Oath should be taken, but I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, said about the ceremony which follows, involving the undignified movement up the steps behind me to the obscurity of the Back-Bench here— a tradition which, as the noble Lord pointed out, no longer applies to the present time. There is no difference between the Earls' Benches and the Barons' Benches. We are all, as he said, at any rate in status and Membership of your Lordships' House, on a par.

I would suggest that the amendment might, therefore, be quite simple. The seating could take place on the Front Bench of the Cross-Benches and, perhaps, the ceremony of doffing the hat might be undertaken only by the Peer who is taking his seat, and then only once. I do not think it is necessary, unless they wish to do so, for the Peers who are sponsors to wear their robes. I do not agree with the noble Lord that it would be right to read out the Patent rather than the Writ. Historically, I think the creation of Peerage by Writ was the original, and for a very long time the only, way a Peerage was created. It is the oldest part of that tradition. The Writ, with its language and its traditional formulae, is in itself a sufficient indication to the House and to onlookers who are watching our ceremonies of the significance of the occasion. The Writ is also under the signature of Her Majesty the Queen.

I think we could produce a modified ceremony, not necessarily just to save time but one which would have more significance in the minds of people watching, including ourselves. This might, to some extent, obviate a good deal of the feeling of the ridiculous—or so it seems to me—which I always feel when I watch it, as I have done on many occasions in your Lordships' House. Certain parts of the ceremony must also appear ridiculous to onlookers.

This is not a superior kind of public school where an initiation ceremony must take place. Many of us may remember some of the ceremonies which took place when a new boy was brought into his House for the first time. We are in this House a mature, ancient, honourable and very dignified assembly, and we should make certain that the way in which we conduct ourselves, whatever may be the customs which have descended to us from the past, is seen by the outsider to be in that light. I hope very strongly that your Lordships will not be carried away by the innate conservatism which exists on all sides of this Chamber and that this proposal will, at any rate, be allowed to go to the Procedure Committee for consideration. So far as I am concerned, and, I am sure, so far as the mover of this Motion is concerned, this is some-thing which we would be perfectly pre-pared to accept, whatever decision is reached. I hope that my noble friend will not press his Amendment.