The role of the House of Lords has always been open to interpretation – does it provide ‘a constitutional safeguard against a government ever trying to ride roughshod over the people’ or is it ‘an anachronism that perpetuates a social system as dead as the Norman times that spawned it’? Or perhaps both? Eric Clark attempted to find out for the Observer Magazine of 24 March 1974 (‘Would you be a lord or lady for £8.50 a day?’)
At that time it was said to contain a third of Britain’s millionaires. Lord Milford – the only communist member of the Lords – was one of those who wanted the whole thing to be abolished, much to the amusement of the rest of them who thought him a ‘damned good, if misguided, chap’. Well, he did go to Eton and Oxford, you know.
At the start of 1974 there were 1,074 peers, 849 of them hereditary, and 630 MPs. Women were finally allowed from 1958 as life peers. It was only able to function at all because the majority of peers stayed away – it held just 200 members (‘300 jam-packed’). Today, it still only holds about 230.
The average daily attendance was 92 in 1955 but 265 by 1971 – ‘a rise that owes much to the introduction of life peers and,’ notes Clark, ‘to the innovation of daily expenses allowances’.
Some of the eccentricities Clark lists are infuriating – Lord Hampden was in the House for 20 years before he made a speech – and plain ridiculous – ‘Today a peer is still liable to apologise at 6.30pm for “detaining the noble Lords at this late hour”.’
‘The atmosphere softens, awes and often tames its newcomers,’ wrote Clark. Which was precisely the point. ‘You are tamed by it, if not seduced,’ admitted Lady Wootton. She also claimed that ‘at any time 10% of the peers present are asleep’. More sedated than seduced then.
