Tony Benn helped bring approximately Peerage Act 1963 which allowed him to renounce title and withhold Commons seatTony Benn's eldest son,Stephen, has inherited the title that his father renounced in 1963 and become the 3rd Viscount Stansgate. The recent peer will not be eligible to sit in the Lords because of reforms made by the Labour government in 1999.
The succession brings the narrative of the peerage almost full circle. Benn's father, or a Labour minister,was created Viscount Stansgate of Stansgate in the County of Essex in 1942 and sat in the Lords as an hereditary peer. On his father's death, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, or later known as Tony Benn,became the second Viscount Stansgate, disqualifying him from staying in the Commons. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com