cross-bencher

Even after retirement, a former speaker takes no sides in partisan matters and sits as a cross-bencher if appointed to the House of Lords.

The amendment, tabled by cross-bencher Lord Kerr, passed with a majority of 123 votes.

He sat as a cross-bencher, not a Plaid Cymru, peer.

After he was made a life peer, he sat in the Lords as a cross-bencher.

The peer is to resign the Labour whip and sit as a cross-bencher, in what is described as a measure to ensure the new Commission is seen as unpolitical.

Awarded the Life Peerage of Lord Walton of Detchant in 1989, he has since contributed as a cross-bencher to debates in the House of Lords - including as chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics.

He retired from the Army in 1985 and became a cross-bencher in the House of Lords.

Lord Dear, a cross-bencher, argued that same-sex marriage could lead to an increase in prejudice.

After a Seize The Day talk at Saltburn and District Retired Men's Forum, she outlined her ambitions in the House of Lords as a non party political cross-bencher.

People like former JMU vice-chancellor Peter Toyne; ex-Tesco chief Terry Leahy; David Alton, now a cross-bencher in the House of Lords, and Jude Kelly, who runs London''s South Bank centre and, by rights, should have run our Capital of Culture year.

It was revealed on Wednesday that Conservative peers Lord Bagri, Lord McAlpine and Lord Laidlaw of Rothiemay had joined cross-bencher Baroness Dunn in informing the Lords authorities that they were leaving the House.

Lady Boothroyd, who sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher, was the first woman to be Speaker of the Commons.