Viscount Trenchard elected to the Lords

Friday, 14 May 2004 12:00 AM

Viscount Trenchard has been elected by Conservative hereditary peers to return to the House of Lords.

Under the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed most of the hereditary peers from the Lords, provisions were made for 92 hereditary peers to remain in the "interim" House until a permanent solution could be agreed.

In the event of the death of one of the hereditaries elected by their peers in 1999, a "by-election" is held amongst the sitting hereditary peers of the relevant party, with only Lords removed from the House of Lords under the Act eligible to stand.

The vacancy was created by the death on March 28 of Lord Vivian, a Conservative front bench defence spokesman.

Viscount Trenchard secured 24 of 45 votes cast in yesterday's poll. 37 Conservative former members of the House of Lords were standing, and Viscount Trenchard's nearest rival for the seat was Viscount Eccles, who won 18 votes.

The Viscount is a vice chairman of the Conservatives Against a Federal Europe group, and a former merchant banker and soldier.

His grandfather was Hugh Montague, the founder of the Royal Air Force.

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