UPPER HOUSE REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 109, 10 May 1934, Page 11

UPPER HOUSE REFORM

LORD SALISBURY'S BILL'

MINISTERS HOLD ALOOF

LONDON, May 9., In the- House of Lords, before a large attendance and with many peeresses in the gallery, Lord Salisbury moved the second- reading of the Lords Bef orm Bill. ■

Lord Bedesdale moved its rejection. He said that such an important constitutional measure should be a Government, not a private, Bill.

Lord Snell said that Lord Salisbury was seeking statutory authority to make Toryism safe for eternity and prevent the will of the people prevailing. ,

Lord Beading said that the Bill was a most dangerous attempt to amend the Parliament Act. It would, not result in the strengthening of the House, but in its abolition.

Lord Hailsham said that ■'. constitutional reform had not formed part of the crisis which brought the National Government into being, and was not discussed at the last election. A reform of such magnitude should be introduced by the Government. : ■ ■ ■ ■ .

It was decided that Ministers should not take part in the division tomorrow.

Lord Salisbury's Bill for the reform of the House of Lords by reducing its membership and strengthening its powers to impose delay in legislation was read a first time on December 19. In introducing the measure he stated that members of both Houses had formed a small committee to submit proposals that would ' secure Britain against any sudden and subversive change, and the Bill was based on those proposals. He called. attention to affairs abroad, where the old order was superseded by dictatorships and by disruptive changes, and he argued that in Britain also they must insure against the possibilities of subversive attempts to set up two methods of government The duty of the House of Lords was to make^sueh. changes in its constitution as would make the country, safe and in so doing they. , should go no' further than was absolutely necessary The aim of the Bill, he said, was to give the House of Lords "sufficient power to prevent the country being hurried into vast changes without time being given to consider them.

The measure proposed that the hereditary element in the ■ House be greatly reduced—to 150 peers—with 150 members added from outside, plus peers of the blood Koyal, members of the Episcopal Bench on a reduced scale, and a number of law lords, making a total membership of about 320.