We should consider whether PMs should have such power to shape the upper chamber – and whether it can continue as it is at all
- Norman Fowler was the lord speaker from 2016 to 2021
It was the autumn of 1989. I had been a member of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet for the past 10 years and it was time to move on. In putting this to the prime minister in her office in Downing Street, I was deluged with kind remarks– but then came a response I had not envisaged.
“I know you want to stay in the Commons, but if you want to go to the Lords then that is entirely possible.” I repeated my desire to stay in the Commons, where I had been for 20 years. But just before I left, she returned to the alternative. “You can go to the Lords if you change your mind.”
Norman Fowler was lord speaker from 2016-21, a cabinet minister with Margaret Thatcher for 11 years, and chairman of the Conservative party between 1992 and 1994. His diaries of the Thatcher and John Major years will be published later this year
