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Black Rod

My Lords, I join, on behalf of the Cross Benches, in the tributes that have been paid to the departing Black Rod, and in warmly welcoming Sir Freddie Viggers. A rough estimate indicates that there have been 57 Black Rods since 1361 when a certain Walter Whitehorse got the job of supervising access to the House of Lords. The job has changed in the intervening 700 or so years, but perhaps never quite as rapidly as during the tenure of Sir Michael, the 57th Black Rod. Sir Michael took over from his predecessor barely four months before that terrible autumn day, 9/11, when the focus of his job shifted dramatically. As Black Rod knows better than any of us, Parliament is a key target for any would-be terrorist attack and the fact that our working lives have continued with serenity is not because of any lack of threat. It is due to the utter and constant vigilance of Sir Michael and his team, who have seamlessly introduced mechanisms that have kept us safe and Parliament accessible to record numbers of visitors. I include among these mechanisms the new access control system, off-site mail screening and, shortly to come, the off-site vehicle search facility. I suppose I also have to mention the Corus barriers. I thank Sir Michael for keeping your Lordships safe, for all the marvellous parties and for the occasional glimpses of Sugar. I wish him all the best in his new post as charter commissioner at the Press Complaints Commission.