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136 
WESTM NSTER HAUL
Page 7
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IT WAS enough to make all the backwoodmen Peers converge on Westminster in their chauffeur-driven vintage Rolls .... the House of Lords was actually being asked to approve a Bill to allow the peasants to go careering all over the countryside in mini-buses, instead of staying at home tilling the soil and touching their forelocks to their betters!
And sure enough, among those who had something to say about the Minibus Bill were two Barons whose titles date back to the thirteenth century. Titles don't come any older than that.
But these heads of ancient Houses, who are always active in Westminster, turned out to be as much in favour of the measure as the newest Labour-appointed Life Peer. True the
Bill was the creation of a Tory MP — but how
is a good anti-Lords democrat to know where he is if this sqrt of thing happens?
Wait a minute though.
When the debate started at twelve minutes to seven, and MPs had already spent nearly three hours of a marathon sitting on the Price Commission Bill which was to last, without a break, until 9.33 the following night, Baroness Young who introduced the measure was promising that "at this late hour" she would not be speaking for long. There's Lordly decadence for you!
What was more, she was so busy thanking Lady Stedman for the help the Government had given, that she Forgot that minibuses and such-like are no longer the responsibility of the Department of the Environment.
It was not until the end of the discussion that she explained that she had forgotten about the Department of Transport because she was "quite overcome by having such absolutely splendid help on a piece of
Liberal Lord Banks added his support, but he was not altogether happy about the Government's view that no special provisions were necessary for dealing with the fitness of the vehicle and the proficiency of the driver, but Baroness Macleod of Borve had an answer to his second worry.
Minibuses, she explained, were very easy to drive, and required no particular ability. She knew because she had driven them.
Lord de Clifford had his doubts about whether the Traffic Commissioners were the right people to decide if the Church or the Boy Scouts should run a minibus, and he conjured up a fearsome vision of football supporters "who go round creating hell eCrerywheregetting themselves organised with a minibus to go to football matches.
But not even this daunting prospect prevented any Peer or Peeress voting against the Bill, which was given its Second Reading.