As a hereditary peer, who had a right to sit and vote in the House of Lords - until that right was largely removed for such peers in 1999 - he had, with his friend and colleague, the late Earl Russell, spoken persuasively in the House in support of open list PR-STV for UK elections of Members of the European Parliament, when that House amended, on four separate occasions, a 1998 Lower House Bill that provided for a closed list only.