He supported a successful amendment from Lord Cobbold, a cross-bencher, which accused the government of altering the upper house for party-political advantage.
He was responding to cross-bencher Lord Chalfont, who urged him to reconvene the Board of Inquiry which examined the cause of the crash and found in 1997 that pilot negligence was to blame.
But there are prominent naysayers too, notably David Blanchflower, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, and Lord Skidelsky - a former Conservative peer, now a cross bencher.