Procedure of the House: Select Committee Third Report (Hansard, 22 July 1999)

§ The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham)

My Lords, I beg to move that the Third Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 81) be agreed to. The Third Report of the Procedure Committee makes proposals for two new Standing Orders to give effect to what we have come to know as the Weatherill amendment. The first proposed new Standing Order relates to the election of 90 hereditary Peers who are to stay on in the House. Two other hereditary Peers are also to stay on in the House; namely, the two great officeholders of state: the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain. But those two Peers are to be Members of the House ex officio, as it were, and are not to be elected.

The Third Report of the Procedure Committee also proposes a new Standing Order to provide for by-elections. The purpose of this Standing Order is to ensure that in the House there are never fewer than 90 elected hereditary Peers. The Government will move an amendment at Third Reading of the House of Lords Bill in this House to write into the Bill the statutory basis for the new Standing Order. The Third Report of the Procedure Committee also sets out proposals drawn up by the Clerk of the Parliaments relating to what one might call the mechanics for the election of the 90 hereditary Peers. I believe that the detailed proposed arrangements for the elections are clear. I shall do my best to answer any questions that your Lordships may have about them.

As to the election arrangements, Peers are expected to vote in person unless a doctor has certified that they are unable to travel to Westminster, in which case they 1136 will be allowed a postal vote. It has been agreed by the usual channels that Peers who are absent on Select Committee business should also be entitled to a postal vote. The Clerk of the Parliaments has been busy working on numerous details of the election arrangements. A notice will be circulated before the Summer Recess setting out the timetable for the elections and other information.

If the House this afternoon approves the Third Report of the Procedure Committee, with or without the amendments proposed by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, the Leader of the House will table a Motion early next week so that the House can give its express approval to the new Standing Orders. This is necessary because what we are approving this afternoon, with or without amendments—if we do so—is the Third Report of the Procedure Committee and, therefore, only indirectly the new Standing Orders.

It is the custom to approve the Standing Orders expressly in a separate and later Motion. I anticipate that any such Motion next week will be purely formal. The decision on the substance of the matter is to be taken by the House this afternoon. I invite your Lordships to raise any matters arising from the Third Report of the Procedure Committee in the debate that we are about to have. The debate need not be confined to the noble Viscount's amendments. I believe and hope that that will be for the convenience of the whole House.