Ex-royal aide wins Lords poll

Ex-royal aide wins Lords poll

Tony Blair has cooled on reform

Lord Ullswater, Princess Margaret's ex-private secretary, is the hereditary peer who has won back his old job in a House of Lords by-election.

The former Conservative chief whip in the Lords beat off competition from 80 hereditary peers and their successors to fill the vacancy left by the death of Viscount Oxfuird earlier this year.

Lord Ullswater will resume his seat as one of the 92 hereditary peers left in place under a deal cut to ease passage of Labour's first-term House of Lords reforms.

He won the contest by 151 votes in a turnout of 423.

Only hereditary peers ejected from the Lords three years ago were allowed to stand in a by-election like no other.

Democracy campaigners had argued the "absurd" by-election underlined the government's failure to complete the second stage of Lords reform.

Candidates

After the poll result was announced, Lord Ullswater said it was a "great honour" to have been chosen to serve again in the House of Lords.

"I look forward to playing an active part in the House once again as it does its vitally important work of scrutinising and improving government legislation," Lord Ullswater said.

The peer is also tanding for election in May to the King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council.

Until now, runners-up in the 1999 elections to choose the 92 peers who survived the cull of hereditaries, have replaced dead peers.

Among the 81 candidates were Conservative MEP the Earl of Stockton, a grandson of former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, son of the famed war commander.

Forty-two of the candidates were Tories, two were Labour, two Liberal Democrats and the rest independents.

Voting was open to all members of the House of Lords, including life peers, bishops and law lords.

Advocates of more Lords reform poured scorn on the by-election, branding it a farce.

A Labour whip in the Lords told BBC News Online: "It's just embarrassing.

"We're trying to pretend it isn't happening. It makes us look stupid and it's all our own fault."

Last election?

Labour peer Lord Desai was similarly dismayed by the contest.

"We never thought it would come to this, with this process actually being used," he said.

"If we have to live with it this time round, we must make sure this is the last of these 'by-elections' to take place."

This 'by-election' highlights the absurdity of the current situation

Karen Barlett
Charter 88

He may get his wish before too long. The former Commons speaker, Lord (Bernard) Weatherill, has introduced a private members' bill that would do away with the by-elections.

"This by-election makes us look silly but it may serve a purpose in concentrating minds on the issue," he predicted.

That view was echoed by Conservative hereditary peer the Earl of Onslow, who kept his Lords seat.

"The by-election procedure was left there to remind Mr Blair that he had promised in his election manifesto to produce a democratic House of Lords," said Lord Onslow.

"If he reneges on that, he will have reneged on his original and correct promise."

'No moral superiority'

Democracy campaign group Charter 88 said the "farcical" election was caused by a lack of desire for Lords reform.

Group director Karen Barlett said: "Candidates who only remain in the House of Lords because of a last minute deal can not claim the moral high ground as the only members to have stood for election.

"But we can never claim to be a truly democratic nation until we have an elected second chamber."

MPs and peers failed to reach any agreement over the seven options for Lords reform offered to them earlier this year.

Those options ranged from a fully-elected second chamber to Tony Blair's preference of a fully-appointed one.