>> It's not that big an issue. It happened in one of the smaller ministries a
>> few years ago, then again in the early 2000s twice.
>>
>> Fairly rare but not unprecedented.
That exactly. It's a long time - eighties - since one of the so called Great Offices of State was held by a Minister in the Lords. That time as well it was the FO under Peter Carington - Lord Carrington - in Thatcher's first term. Peter Mandelson came back into Labour's cabinet in the Brown era too as a Member of the Upper House having vacated his Commons seat to be an EU Commissioner. .
The Speaker made a statement yesterday about how Lord Cameron might be able to account to the Commons. In effect he said we've done it before and it's no great sweat to work out how to do it now.
Cameron can appear before its Committees. If we're honest rather than being fetishistic about the House itself that's where accountability is done on the ground anyway.
See my comment earlier about Dr. Coffey.
The FO is not, for the most part, an office where activity gives rise to massive controversy or big Parliamentary Bills. I doubt you could run the Home Office or the DWP so effectively with the Minister in the Lords but if Cameron's the right man, and from the available field he probably is, I don't think it's a massive problem.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 14 Nov 23 at 09:45
|