Long Table: Lord Butler on the Ship of State

From the Archive

The former cabinet secretary, now a Lords crossbencher, describes his life as a peer and the differing demands of serving under five prime ministers.

On a typical day when parliament’s sitting, I’ll go into the House of Lords. It’s my main job now, but I fit other things around it. I’m on a select committee. They meet at some point during the week, usually on a morning. I go in to the Lords, and by chatting with people over lunch pick up all the gossip. There are other things I fit in, including speaking to students doing their thesis on some aspect of government. I’m also on the board of the Academic Health Sciences Centre. And so the days fill up.

If I’m not in London, I’ll be at my home in Norfolk, where life is a bit more straightforward and the garden is the focus. And at my time of life, grandchildren are the focus as well. So my time there is taken up mainly with family and keeping fit: cycling, walking and swimming.

I feel that I have an obligation to contribute what I can when I’m needed. Not that I think anybody takes much notice of what the Lords say at the moment. Legislation is where we make a real contribution, because they can’t ignore us. We pass amendments and then the Commons has to consider them. The government will usually try to override the changes we make, but in recent circumstances where there’s no majority, it’s difficult for them.

In one bill, meant to carry forward the trade agreements that we’d negotiated through EU membership, the Lords amended that to say that we should stay a member of the …

Subscribe to The Mace

Join the member community shaping British politics and stay ahead of what's really happening in the world of politics and public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels. The Mace is the leading news source and resource for the government affairs industry, offering required reading and lobby intelligence for professionals.

To see what you are missing out on by not subscribing to The Mace, click here to download our full membership info-pack. This includes having no paywall on op-ed content or profiles/interviews, allowing professional profiles to be read with maximum impact and visibility by government, special advisers, MPs, peers, civil servants, and policy and political decision-makers.