Full marks to Baroness Royall, leader of the Lords, for announcing plans for a new law which could lead to Lords being suspended, expelled or even lose their title if they break the rules (albeit if the Tories and Lib Dems thought of it first).
But am I the only one feeling a little sceptical?
Lord Tyler, the excellent Lib Dem peer, tells me that he sat on a committee in 1999 (including various law Lords and others) which decided that there was an urgent need forstronger rules to suspend misbehaving Lords. Somewhere along the line it was kicked into the long grass.
“The committee sat for eighteen months,” he says with a sigh.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey