The successor to Michael Pownall as Clerk of the Parliaments has been announced. His successor will be the current Clerk Assistant, David Beamish.
David Beamish is a great expert on the House of Lords. He also has the distinction of once having won the Mastermind contest.
Lets hope he handles expenses correctly and doesn’t hand them out without any checks.
One of the ‘victims’ of his predecessors handling is up in court today.
Interesting little snippets from the defence.
Taylor is playing the race card. Given the approach of the Lords where those who are black or asian are disproportionately represented on the expenses mess, he might have a point.
Defence is also that claims like his were common place. The others are guilty too argument. Will he name names? Quite a few who post here might be interested.
Next defence. It was in lieu of salary. I don’t see that washing.
Then there is “a senior peer told me”. Perhaps the same peer will tell him to play hop scotch on the M1. That peer needs to be named. In court, so he can without any fear.
Emails with the Sunday Times are also part of the case.
Lots of interesting things that no doubt will worry other peers too. Expect more knocks from plod
Complements to the new clerk.
You never know Twm might live long enough to come up, and a few complements now might go a long way later.
What was his chosen subject?
tory boy: Nancy Astor and the Royal Family from 1714 ro 1910.
Having been on Mastermind it seems he has taken an older women to heart?
When I posted this for Tory Boy (LN 14/1) I got no reply:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1914/feb/18/house-of-commons-seating-accommodation
It seems in 1914 Hansard is adhering to established practice within the Commons of prefixing member names with a title if they are associated with the peerage even though they have not inherited the title. It was the custom in that era for an heir-apparent to sit as an MP and learn the craft of governance so much so that in 1910 you could have mistaken the Commons for the the HoL.
Constitutionally a peer cannot be a member of both houses at the same time. This proved problematic for the 2nd Viscount Stansgate (Anthony Wedgwood Benn) who for a brief time was eligible as a member of both houses. He was disqualified as an MP in 1961 by an Election Court and forced to accept the office of Steward of the Manor of Northstead, thereby disqualifying himself as an MP.
The injustice of it all led to the Peerage Act 1963 and he again returned to the Commons in 1963. After the House of Lords Act 1999 the removed hereditary peers were allowed to vote in General Elections and take up seats as MPs without renouncing their titles.
Only one such peer now sits in the Commons and he is Liberal Democrat MP John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso, often to be seen doing committee work.
Senex i am sorry for not commentating I am doing a MA and am therefore rather busy! However i agree it is very interesting but would not happen today. As lords cannot sit in the commons and the other way round. Therefore you cannot call an MP, “a noble lord.”
A titled Lord, an hereditary peer, not an heir apparent sits in the Commons resplendent with his Letters Patent and good for him.
I don’t know where Senex gets this ‘forced to resign’ constitutional nonsense from. After inheriting the peerage Tony Benn was disqualified by resolution of the House of Commons; when he was declared elected at the ensuing byelection, his opponent succeeded in the election court in establishing that Benn was not merely ineligible for election but also that everyone who voted for him knew so. The election court therefore declared his opponent duly elected and Benn not duly elected. The Clerk of the House of Commons manually altered the return from the byelection to remove Benn’s name and insert Malcolm St Clair’s name. There was no ‘forced to resign’ anywhere and Benn has never been Steward of the Manor of Northstead.
It is an absurdity hereditary Peers have the use of both houses without first having discarded their peerage and standing for election. It is a fudge to enable them to find their way into the Commons without having to put themselves up for public scrutiny. And once the Peerage is surrendered it should not be acceptable to just resume where one left off. Privilege here being seen as ludicrous to a modern democratic world and people.
Take for example, Earl of Home, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who was up and down with his peerage before making his way to Prime Minister, through a fixed safe seat, after he dropped his peerage. He jumped back and forth in both houses as it suited him.
Today the public only hear of how and why people become Peers through the back door. Hereditary having, in the main, been discarded. Many instead being chosen for reasons that appear erroneous to the voters and completely outrageous in the round. Added to that, is the fact they remain there after being imprisoned and appears as an added insult to injury.
The joke being, prisoners are not allowed a vote!!! Yes, it is ‘now’ being discussed to give prisoners a vote and yet still there is a hue and cry about them being undeserving of such a privilege,(I disagree with that notion though) whilst Lords of the Realm can remain in situ having broken the law. It made more sense when the member was born an aristocrat, as going to prison didn’t change birth status. That is no longer the situation and so it appears the Lords is filling up with rabble.
I find the idea of hopping from Lords to Commons an insult, as well as a fudge, in order to by-pass the consent of the electorate as to whom will govern.
“it appears the Lords is filling up with rabble” Now if you had said “it appears the Lords is filling up with rubble” I would have put it down to the peer who started life as a brick layer.
“It is an absurdity hereditary Peers have the use of both houses without first having discarded their peerage” The House of Lords Act 1999 overrides this functionality in the Peerage Act 1963 so peers now have no choice in the matter.
Senex: It is imperative then, that both Houses should be fully elected. The back door needs to be shut tight. The entire upper House is a scam.
A true democracy is impossible with what we have now.
What strikes me about all of this is that an elected house opens the opportunity for a great healing within the body politic. The creation of the Peerage Act 1963 corrected an injustice but at the same time it also created an injustice in terms of family honour.
Hilary Benn will eventually receive the title his father was obliged to disclaim as though it had never happened and be able to remain in the Commons and I think this is simply wonderful. Indeed the same applies to the issue of all those that disclaimed their peerages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peerage_Act_1963
All of these people will see their family honour restored. What’s more we may even see Baronesses enter the Commons but not necessarily suo jour. They can derive from their husband’s title. Those hereditary peers that left the house in 1999 are also able to enter the Commons complete with title.
Another aspect of the healing is that the Monarchy would be able to lift its moratorium on the creation of hereditary peerages thereby re-engaging with its nobility instead of keeping them at arms length. The spectre of extinction would disappear.
All of this presents Hansard with a dilemma as I see it. Should peers sitting in the Commons use their given names or should they be addressed by their title? Should the Speaker allow the use of the phrase ‘the Noble Lord’?
There will be one distinction between houses. If peers in the Lords retain their dignity by not taking remuneration, those that sit in the Commons would be regarded as undignified if in receipt of such remuneration. On that basis I suppose the practice ought to be one of using the given name but the practice established in a former era could still hold out promise.
Senex: I believe Hilary Benn is not the eldest son and therefore will not inherit the Stansgate title.
Thank you! I stand corrected.
I thought I should mention that the House of Lords Act 1999 also allows hereditary peers external to the house to vote in general elections, so shock horror; title holding peers sitting in the Commons enjoying the benefits of universal suffrage. If suffrage is good enough for peers in that house then in my view the constitutional position of appointed peers in the Lords is untenable, they must become elected by precedent.
Quite a turn up for the books wouldn’t you say?
This keeps firing off triggers. According to Cobbet’s detailed chronology he says of the Parliament summoned on March 12, 1332:
“It is worthy of remark that this is the first time that we can find that the Commons ever separated from the Lords and made a distinct house by themselves, though without a Speaker.”
Later in 1341 after a quarrelsome spat between houses, King Edward III orders them to separate permanently. It seems that while both houses were sitting together the Lords snitched up Commons work in progress to the King. This Order forms part of our written constitution.
The year 1341 is really the beginning of the ‘Hundred Years War’ and the reign of Edward is pivotal in our history. The King is pleading with Parliament to give him more money; it seems the country faces bankruptcy.
All of this makes John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso an important figure in the history of Parliament. He joined the Commons in 2001, some 670 years after the first recorded separation of both houses. His departure from the HoL in 1999 and his desire to remain in Parliament is in my view exemplary.
Ref: Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, from the Norman
Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803. Volume 1; Page 91, para 2.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=k7cTAAAAYAAJ
Timeline of the Hundred Years War
http://www.maisonstclaire.org/timeline/1341.html