4 days ago
Good Lords: the House is losing some of the best
Keir Starmer has not been the luckiest general. But, in one respect, he has bested Napoleon. The Duke of Wellington will shortly be purged from parliament, two centuries after Waterloo. Like his ancestor, Charles Wellesley has led a life of public service. For that, he will shortly receive the sack as part of the greatest purge of active lawmakers since Oliver Cromwell. All this so Starmer can make way for the likes of Tom Watson, Sue Gray and Richard Hermer.
Among the hereditary peers are Olympians and entrepreneurs, artists and academics. Some are genuine blue bloods, others political animals. Senior Tories across both Houses lament the loss of Earl Howe and Lord Strathclyde, both of whom are described by colleagues as 'first-rate ministers'. Between them, the pair have clocked up 80 years in parliament. Strathclyde is the son of the last Tory MP to sit for a seat in Glasgow and is known across the House to be shrewd and gregarious. He led the Lords under David Cameron after beginning his career as a whip for Margaret Thatcher. Having helped carve a compromise which saved 92 hereditaries from Tony Blair, he will go down in history as the last one to sit at the cabinet table.
Earl Howe succeeded him as the longest continuously serving Conservative frontbencher after Strathclyde quit the coalition in 2013; his life on the burgundy benches began when the Soviet Union still existed and he has since served six Conservative prime ministers. Howe worked at the Ministry of Defence, where he introduced the Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Act 2018. And his experience ranges from financial services to charity, including disability and epilepsy advocacy, the RNLI and the Chiltern Society. The parliamentarians I spoke to from both chambers talked of a decent and knowledgeable man.
Not all relations between the Commons and the Lords are as harmonious. Wellington has gained a reputation as a thorn in the side of ministers. The Duke is married to Princess Antonia of Prussia and was chosen to carry Queen Mary's Crown at the King's coronation. He is also a former councillor and MEP. Although he entered the Lords as a Conservative in 2015, he broke ranks over Brexit, eventually becoming a crossbench peer. Wellington is a staunch environmentalist and has put down wrecking amendments to save green protections. He was expected to cause Labour trouble on their planning bill, and there are those in government who will be relieved to see the Duke go.
Viscount Thurso is one of four Lib Dem hereditary peers. He has both a luxuriant beard and a serious lineage, being the grandson of Archie Sinclair, Winston Churchill's wartime Air Secretary. On the Labour benches sit Viscount Hanworth, a nuclear expert and statistics professor, and Viscount Stansgate, son of Tony Benn. Awkwardly, his brother Hilary Benn is a member of the government and is committed to his sibling's expulsion.
While some hereditaries have followed the well-trodden path of the military, agriculture and finance, others prove that there is no mould. Lord Hampton is a photographer turned department head at a local state school. The Earl of Minto ran Paperchase. The Earl of Rosslyn started out patrolling the streets of Peckham for the Metropolitan Police. Lord Trefgarne was a pilot, and the Earl of Oxford and Asquith was a spy.
Perhaps no one better illustrates the experience of the hereditaries than Lord Moynihan. He coxed Oxford to victory in the 1977 Boat Race and won a silver medal in the 1980Moscow Olympics, taking over the British Olympic Association in the run-up to the 2012 games. Moynihan was a political adviser to Francis Pym when he was foreign secretary, and he first entered parliament in 1983 not as a Lord but as the MP for Lewisham East. He served as minister for sport under Thatcher, supporting her through the Hillsborough disaster, before eventually joining the Lords in 1997.
While Conservatives make up more than half of hereditary peers, Labour's purge will hit the crossbenchers hardest. Nearly one in five will be removed. Among them is their convenor, Lord Kinnoull. He is a chemist by training and a former barrister, who spent 25 years in insurance and chairs a wildlife conservation trust, promotes Scottish culture and tourism and runs a farm. He also sits on seven parliamentary committees and is regarded by colleagues as 'erudite, charming yet wily'.
For some hereditaries, Labour's expulsion will mark the end of a parliamentary career that had only just begun. Lord Camoys, one of the youngest at 50, entered the Lords two years ago, following a career in finance and diplomacy – with postings in Afghanistan and Delhi and working in counter–terrorism. His latest venture – a £3.5 billion development for a film studios in Marlow – would create more than 4,000 new jobs. Sign-off on the project rests with the Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner. If Lord Camoys is unlucky, he may find he has not one but two careers cut short by this Labour government.
