Rt Hon BARONESS ASHTON OF UPHOLLAND, THEN LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

Parliament, to abuse the writer LP Hartley’s famous dictum, is a foreign country: they do things differently there. For many people, that all too often is the case. Glimpsed on the TV news, mediated through newspaper sketchwriters, Parliament can indeed seem a peculiar and incomprehensible place, full of impenetrable rituals and off-putting procedures.

If that is the case for Parliament in general, how much more so for the House of Lords, which I now have the enormous privilege to lead? Red benches, ermine, the noble Lord, the noble Lady: though a vital part of our legislative process, and the key element in the system of checks and balances our constitution provides, members of the House of Lords know that, without context, without information, without guidance, their chamber runs the risk of looking even more foreign than the Commons.

That is, of course, why such publications as the redoubtable Parliamentary Yearbook are so valuable. The Yearbook — one of the volumes without which no self-respecting parliamentarian’s bookshelf can be complete — is an essential tool for parliamentary information and parliamentary understanding. Parliament — both the House of Commons and the House of Lords — is the cornerstone of our democracy, our way of life, and our country. Efforts and publications which increase Parliament’s visibility, its connection and its accountability, such as the Yearbook, are to be both commended and recommended. For the Parliamentary Yearbook, I do both — unhesitatingly.