‘This is our culture’: what Earl of Devon thinks hereditary peers bring to Lords

Charles Courtenay, the Earl of Devon. ‘We have a longer horizon, probably, than other people within the house,’ he says. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The Guardian

It is tricky in modern Britain to defend the existence of hereditary peers, but the Earl of Devon will have a very good go.

The 49-year-old earl – Charles Peregrine Courtenay, an affable, 6ft 6in intellectual property lawyer who lives in a medieval castle – entered the House of Lords in 2018 when he was working for a US firm.