There I was, minding my own business on the long train journey from Cornwall after the Easter weekend, when my pager told me that there would be Government statement that afternoon. Nothing remarkable in that. A few minutes later a call on my mobile told me that I had to respond to it for the Lib Dems. Don’t panic!!
Arriving at the Lords less than an hour before the Minister could – in theory – make the statement on “constitutional renewal”, I needed a swift course in speed-reading. Efficient study by my resourceful Assistant, and a note of what my MP colleague was likely to say at the other end of building, gave me a good start. But neither could actually compose a reasonable coherent contribution for me. That had to be me. I went into the Chamber to be ready for action, and scurried through all the papers I had seen, trying to make sense of too much information. Whether it came off you can judge yourself by clicking here to read, or here to watch; my contribution comes 1hr 38 mins into the video, so you may want to wind forward!
Of course, this is just the opening chapter, with lots more discussion to come. The intention is good. “Re-connecting” people with their Parliament is very urgent and very worthwhile. But will these proposals actually do anything more than tinker with the way the politicians connect with one another? Watch this space.
Incidentally, three of your regular bloggers took part in this discussion. As usual, however, we did not all agree. We aim to provide a variety of views!
Talking of fast reaction times, and well done for some clear thinking on the hoof, how much of the house of lords business is reactive and how much is proactive.
In other words how much elbow room to you have to ask your own awkward questions ?
Wrong place to ask I know, what odds are the House of Lords tipsters giving On Hillary ?
The attached website makes reference to a House Of Lords report ‘due next month’ on immigration.
There are some very interesting and thought-provoking reports, which will stimulate debate on this topic – I know that it has got for me.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2008/03/immigration_2.shtml
No doubt this will be a topic to which we can return when the House of Lords publishes this report. The issue about language skills is, for me as a Welshman, particularly important in the context of education.
I don’t think that what I read from the Hansard link you posted amounts to reconnecting politicians with voters.
As far as I understand it, the EU works on the principle of subsidiary, which means that legislation should be enacted at the lowest level possible (in the case of the EU I think this often means legislation at the national level).
It would be nice to see a similar principle operating in the UK, in terms of political decision making. Could it be amended to this bill? Maybe it would test the commitment of the government to reducing executive power.
The current political structure is uneven – the cynical might make the point that this is deliberate, as whomever is currently forming the government tinkers with the system to make sure that when they are voted out of power in the house of commons they are still in power in some other place.
This uneveness needs to be addressed – another thing that I didn’t really see in the governments statement.