Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

The difference is that life peers are at least appointed on their own merit. Since the hon. Gentleman mentions the matter, let me deal with the provenance of some of the people who have been "elected" as hereditary peers in by-elections. Take, for example, the Earl of Stair. His is a Scottish peerage created in 1703 for the lawyer and statesman John Dalrymple, who was Secretary of State for Scotland until he was forced to resign for his responsibility for the massacre of Glencoe. That was how he got in the House of Lords, and it is only because of what his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather did at the beginning of the 18th century that the current Earl could even stand as a candidate. Or take the original Earl of Glasgow, who was one of the commissioners who negotiated the treaty of Union. Everybody who negotiated the treaty benefited directly in some form or another, and in his case he was given a peerage.