The weekly quiz – women in the Lords

November 14, 2009 – 12:00 pm

019 (2)For this week’s quiz, I thought I would focus on women in the House.   Various attempts were made to enable women to sit in the Lords prior to the 1958 Life Peerages Act.  The passage of the Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act 1919 was taken by some as suggesting that women may be eligible for admission to the House.   At the time there was a small number of hereditary peeresses and one of them, Viscountess Rhondda, requested a writ of summons.  Her application was initially upheld by the Committee of Privileges, but after opposition from some peers it was reconsidered and turned down.   A Private Member’s Bill to allow women to sit was variously introduced but failed to achieve passage.   It was not until 1958 that women could be offered life peerages and it was the 1963 Peerages Act that allowed women who inherited their titles to sit. 

This week’s questions:

1.  Who was the first woman Leader of the House of Lords?

2. Which Leader of the House held office while her father was also a member of the House?

3. Of the two women who presently sit as elected hereditary peers, who has served in the House the longest?

4. Which female life peer has served as a distinguished judge and whose brother served as Lord Chancellor?

The first two readers to supply the correct answers will be the winners.

By lordnorton | Posted in Lord Norton | Tagged , | Comments (9)

Influence and an absence of ping pong

November 12, 2009 – 9:08 pm

45007Parliament was prorogued at 4.30 p.m. today.  It was a quiet end end to a tumultuous session.  There was no last minute ‘ping pong’ between the chambers.  The absence of such ‘ping pong’ reflected the influence rather than the weakness of the Lords.  On recent measures – some of the big Bills going through the House – the Government has been busy accepting amendments, recognising that they improve the Bill.  Few of the amendments are the result of Government defeats.  The House proceeds largely by way of  a constructive discourse with ministers.  Each session, anything between 1,000 and 4,000 amendments may be secured in the House.  Occasionally, it becomes necessary to force a vote and the Government may be defeated.  As Meg Russell’s research has shown, about 40 per cent of defeats are accepted by Government; somewhat counter-intuitively, it is the more important defeats than tend to be accepted. 

The House thus makes a difference and it does so on limited resources.   The demand is greatest on opposition front benchers.   Many are basically full time but have no salary and extremely limited research support.   The demands are also great on those with expertise in a particular area who are willing to devote long hours in Grand Committee and on Report to pursuing amendments.  Some Bills are in Committee for several days.   We may sit late to get through all the amendments.   The important aspect of such sittings is quality rather than quantity in terms of who is present.  It is very rare to force divisions during committee stage.  It is the discourse between ministers and peers who know what they are talking about that is important.  I have achieved some modest changes, but none has involved forcing or threatening a vote.  They entailed moving amendments in committee, letting ministers (who initially resisted them) reflect on them, and then having meetings with the ministers to discuss what they may accept or assurances they are prepared to put on record.  It is not earth-shattering stuff, but it all adds up to an improvement in legislation.  

The most important work of the Lords, certainly in overall terms in affecting legislation, is that which you do not hear about.  The major defeat, or the failure to defeat the Government on a contentious issue, attracts the headlines, but what is newsworthy is what is exceptional, or – as with Prime Minister’s Question Time – what is televisual.   Detailed scrutiny in an essentially non-adversarial environment does not qualify.

By lordnorton | Posted in Lord Norton | Tagged , , | Comments (7)

An Emotional Week

November 12, 2009 – 7:58 pm

It is almost unbearable when the names of young men and women killed in Afghanistan are read out in the Chamber of the House of Lords. After we returned from the summer recess the roll call was no less than 38 and it was more than many of us could cope with. The question hangs in the air, heavily: for what are our young dying?

This week we honoured the dead and the wounded on almost every day and the ceremonies became more poignant as the week wore on.

 Last Friday there was a mammoth debate on Defence which inevitably focused almost entirely on the Afghanistan question and others have already blogged about it. The fight that the armed forces mount each and every day is brave beyond belief and they need (indeed must have) the support from a public which has some idea of what they are going through. But this cannot stop us from asking the fundamental question over and over again.

I have to say that if only a small part of the  billions of dollars spent on arms and maintaining the armed forces in the south of Afghanistan could be deployed to proper, thought through, sustained reconstruction and development – with a strong emphasis on investment in industy and natural mineral wealth – there would be hope for some communities in the safer areas.

I firmly believe that this model of investment and coherent planning would help Afghans to face the Taliban or rather turn their  backs on them. It is amazing what can  be achieved if money, people, plans and other resources come together and insist on resolving a problem – however intractable.

It could be achieved  but I guess that it probably won’t happen.

By baronessdsouza | Posted in Baroness D'Souza | Comments (1)

“Parliamentary Ping Pong” – Part 2

November 12, 2009 – 5:06 pm

The afternoon after the night before, and here is my report, as promised.   So much for the claim that the House of Lords makes the Commons – and the Government majority there – think again.

 David Davis MP, former Conservative Shadow Home Secretary and leading campaigner against attacks on civil liberties, previously described Minister’s attempts to hold inquests in secret as a “sinister threat”.   Conservative MPs consistently supported moves to stop this change in the law – intended, no doubt, to protect officialdom in the case of soldiers’ deaths – in the Coroners and Justice Bill.

Last night, despite all this principled opposition, Conservative Peers were told by their Whips to abstain when the Liberal Democrats maintained their attack on this “sinister threat”.   Sadly, a number of Crossbenchers who should know better followed their lead, although those most associated with civil liberties issues joined the Liberal Democrats. With only a very brave few Conservatives defying their party, the Government won by 175 to 70.  

Unkind colleagues muttered that the Tory Peers had wanted to speed up the ping-pong process, putting “dinner before democracy”.   I think that was unfair.  It was only too obvious that they wanted to get on to the more excitable issue of sexuality.  Significantly, they piled into the Chamber for that debate:   I saw Peers who haven’t been present for months, and one or two that I didn’t recognise at all.  A total of 314 Members voted in the Division just before 8pm, and so those already dressed up for formal dinners were able to get away in time for the soup course.

The only casualty in the rush for the door was the reputation of the House of Lords as a responsible revising chamber, using this priceless opportunity to force the Government and the Commons to think twice before undermining our civil liberties.

Meanwhile, a list of votes sent to me by the excellent House of Lords Library shows that of all the hundreds of government defeats since November 2002, only 19 happened after 8pm. Of those six were in 2005, when the House exceptionally sat until nearly 6am, to counsel caution against the Government’s attempts to introduce control orders.  Back then, I was in the Commons and, as in this more recent case, Conservative MPs made a lot of bluster in defence of civil liberties and then their Peers gave in on key principles where they had the power to make a difference.

By lordtyler | Posted in Lord Tyler | Comments (5)

End of Term

November 12, 2009 – 11:24 am

This is both a new post and a follow-on to Lord Tyler’s last. Last night was an exciting evening in the Chamber. The Commons response to the Lords amendments in the Coroners and Justice bill returned to our House for consideration. The process by which a Commons amendment A (usually a re-insertion of the former Government position or a modified response) is debated alongside an amendment A1 by any peer (usually the official opposition or a Lib Dem) who wishes to hold out for the original Lords position. We then proceed to B, B1 and C, C1 and so on through the Commons amendments. In the ’secret inquests’ question the Government had moved a considerable distance to add safeguards; the Inquiry substituted for an Inquest in these rare cases is now to be decided on by the Judiciary not by Ministers. The Majority was satisfied the Government had now largely met the anxieties expressed on all sides in previous debates and won the vote.

The next vote was sexual infidelity being removed as a partial defence to murder, at lease that was how it was perceived although many lawyers in the house pointed out that in fact sexual infidelity alone has never an ‘excuse’ for murder. This was the first vote where perceptions outside the House, particularly the campaigns of women’s groups seemed to be having a major influence.  Before I came into the chamber I’d received (and I guess then so did every crossbench peer) a badly written and ill conceived  e-mail letter from Harriet Harman (twice, from different parts of her office) exhorting us to vote for the Government.  I was so irritated by the letter I’d almost made up my mind to vote against. Then I listened to the debate, and Heavens, the loquacious  speech of the Lib Dem opposing the Government position, Lord Thomas of Gresford was enough to drive me into the Government’s arms. It seemed to me an unnecessary addition to the bill but probably won’t do any harm either.

The last big vote I stayed for (Lord Tyler won’t like this but I decided after it that I wanted to go home for dinner) was the so called ‘free speech’ clause or The Waddington Amendment. Again, before I came into the House  to listen to the debate I thought I’d probably vote against the government, but having listened to the safeguards and watched how many homophobic peers were voting for the amendment, I decided in the end I didn’t want to keep company with them and voted against. A long winded and rather bad tempered debate, at one point the incomparable Baroness Trumpington intervened

“My Lords, I wonder whether I would be right in saying that 99 per cent of the Members in this Chamber have already made up their minds which way they are going to vote. Will the Minister cut the cackle and let us get on with it?

Noble Lords: Hear hear.

Yes, that’s exactly how we all felt. Lord Bach did try and speed things up with the thankfully short-winded Lord Henley for the Opposition and we eventually voted. The Government lost so it will return today for a final ping or pong. Then we will be prorogued for a break before State Opening. I’ll try not to giggle during the pantomime-like ceremony of prorogation

By baronessmurphy | Posted in Baroness Murphy | Comments (9)