HOUSE OF LORDS

Southland Times, Issue 22203, 21 December 1933, Page 5

HOUSE OF LORDS

PROPOSED REFORM

REDUCED MEMBERSHIP INTENDED PRIVATE BILL (United Press Assn.— Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec 5.5 p.m.) London, December 19. In the House of Lords the Marquis of Salisbury moved a private Bill for the reform of the House of Lords by reducing the membership and strengthening its powers to impose delay on legislation. The Bill, based on proposals submitted by a small committee, was designed, he said, to secure Britain against any sudden subversive changes. The measure proposed that the hereditary element be reduced to 150 peers with 150 added from outside, plus peers of the blood Royal, members of the Episcopal Bench on a reduced scale and a number of law lords. The total membership would be about 320. The Marquis of Salisbury called attention to affairs abroad, where the old order was superseded by dictatorships. 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 such 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 was to give the House of Lords sufficient power to prevent the country from being hurried into vast changes without time being given to consider them. . Lord Ponsonby moved the rejection of the Bill on the ground that its intention was to consolidate Conservative dominance of the Upper House. It was an attempt to use the Government’s passing majority to jerrymander the constitution in favour of the Tory Pa Lord Reading agreed that the Bill would not only increase the power of the House of Lords, but would give it a dominant Conservative majority. They would be taken back to the bad old days before 1911, which they thought had been disposed of for once and for - all. Viscount Astor, while favouring the House of Lords reform, thought that the Marquis of Salisbury’s Bill would maintain all the disadvantages of the present constitution. He would prefer a nominated to a hereditary House. Lord Dickinson said that the House of Lords should not be empowered to override the House of Commons. Lord Hailsham, on behalf of the Government, said it was the custom to give the first reading to every Bill. He would therefore vote for its introduction, but that did not mean that the Government or he personally supported it. As the Government had not considered the subject he could not, on its behalf, express an opinion on the measure.

Leave to introduce the Bill was given by 84 votes to 35. The Marquis of Salisbury, citing Sir Stafford Cripps’s speeches on Labour’s intentions, said: “We should be insane if we did not take precautions to prevent the country', unknowingly and not dreaming of the consequences, from being exposed to a Labour Government.” He had never been able to understand the attacks on the hereditary principle, which permeated the whole of our society. “We are not fighting for our rights, but for our obligations,” he said. “It would be contemptible to suggest that we are fighting for privileges. We are here because we believe we can render a service to the country. If it does not want us, let us go home. The reform of the House of Lords has been in issue for half a century. A moment when the dangers of a Labour success are formidable, and v/hen Conservatives and Liberals alike are determined to resist them, seems a hopeful moment to submit a Bill to strengthen the constitution and powers of the House of Lords.”