The other day I had occasion to call in to my office on a Sunday evening; I came in to the Houses of Parliament via the only entrance open and cut through Westminster Hall. It was twilight, the immense Hall was absolutely deserted – just me and HISTORY. For the first time the impact of so many centuries of history hit me – Westminster Hall, as most know, is the oldest remaining part of the Palace of Westminster and parts of it go back to the 12th Century.
It’s still officially summer recess and although some peers clearly come in, I have only come across one or two in the last couple of weeks. The carpeted corridors are deathly quiet, the various bars and cafes shut down after lunch, and only some of the policeman are on duty. It should somehow be depressing, but it isn’t. The House of Lords, contrary to many people’s expectations, is a very friendly and warm place even without its full complement of peers and doorkeepers and attendants.
Anyhow what am I doing while Parliament is in recess? Preparing for the new term in short. As Convenor of the Independent Crossbench Peers (ICPs) the most valuable commodity I can give to the 200 odd peers in our group is information. They need to know what legislation is coming up, what might be the contentious issues, when will they be voted on and who is tabling what amendments.
Given that the ICPs have no party structure to rely on, this work has to be done by ferreting out information from a variety of sources. These include previous debates on a given bill in both Houses, the stages at which bills are (committee/report/ third reading) which determines what kinds of interventions can be made, talking to the various political offices, the Government’s Draft Legislative programme which gives clues as to what kind of additional legislation might be expected.
The State Opening of Parliament will be on 3 December – later than usual, normally it is the beginning of November. This reflects the enormous amount of business the Government still has to complete before the Queen’s Speech which will outline the new session’s intentions. There are major bills coming up each with major and often contentious clauses; for example, the 42 day pre-charge detention in the Counter-terrorism Bill, the shifting of planning permissions for infrastructure installations such as energy and waste sites from local autorities to a new Planning Commission, in the Planning Bill.
In order to get these bills through the Lords with all the amendments that will undoubtedly be tabled, no long debates are scheduled and we will be required to sit on many Fridays between now and the beginning of December. Even with this strict schedule it will still be a tight squeeze! As many of you know if a bill does not pass through all its stages in one parliamentary session it is then ‘lost’ (there are some exceptions) and will have to begin all its stages once again in both chambers.
So the race is on and I am trying to prepare as best as I can for what will be an exceptionally busy two months.
Dear Lady D’Souza,
What a wonderful and romantic image your post evokes.
We all tend to think of Parliament in session, the corridors and lobbies thronging with people, the Chambers debating issues and the Committees going about their work. It is so easy at those times to overlook and not fully appreciate just what great events and people the building, as a building, has witnessed and just what a magical place it is.
Yet, when the Palace is empty, when the office lights are out, and the Chambers are quiet, surely then it comes into its mythical and mystical own. We can look at the Palace and especially Westminster Hall and marvel at all it has seen, all it has survived and all it has meant and means to us. And we can imagine and hope that somewhere within its precincts the ghosts of our statesmen and stateswomen are continuing to debate!
Whether at work, or in what we might call a state of slumber, the Palace of Westminster is still the greatest forum in the land. Let us hope it continues thus for another 1000 years.
Howridiculous.
Thank you so much for echoing my own feelings so accurately.
Dear Lady D’Souza
You seem to take not only your duties and position as the crossbench convener seriously but also delight in your surroundings and the lineage of the place and settings where you work, which is fantastic and how it should be, notwithstanding any unconscious sense of irony that may have crept in elsewhere.
On my second reading (sic) of your blog I was considerably spooked by the sublimity of your attitude towards the Counter Terrorism Bill et al, where you seem to be looking at it from a slightly Alice in Wonderland “hurry hurry must be rushed through or it will never get there which won’t do at all” wholly administrative perspective and ‘Even with this strict schedule it will still be a tight squeeze!’ which seems to treat it like just any other old Bill to be pushed through quickly and efficiently.
My apologies if I have read you completely wrong, but please bear in mind that even though you have a job to do, which I wish you well at, many of us outside of your work place would consider that the Counter Terrorism Bill getting ‘lost’ would be a day to celebrate both for freedom and for the ongoing success of Another Place, which I salute and which is rightly or wrongly considered by many a last bastion against the inexorable rush towards total executive power and control over us mere subjects.
Procedurally I don’t know whether or not your ‘…no long debates are scheduled…’ is a good thing or not for the overthrow of this despicable Bill and all it implies for the future. I sincerely hope it is.
If it’s not then please, please have some longer debates.
I can offer sandwiches and coffee delivered if that would help.
Out here there is very little else ‘we’ can do but rely on you and yours, from whichever side of the bench you sit on, to fight for us and our now almost extinct centuries old rights and freedoms; to fight for freedom from tyrannical rule of any strength or flavour issuing from the Mother of all Parliaments both now and in the future.
In this the ICPs must surely hold an enviable position, for even in your place, old loyalties must be hard to shake off.
I hope it comes across that I enjoy and wholeheartedly support you, this blog, Another Place and all its contributors in their endeavors and I’m sincerely sorry if I poured too much cold water on your obvious enthusiasm and enjoyment.
You do describe very clearly what sounds like the most wonderful of surroundings to work in.
Thank you.
Hieronymous – no, this is not pouring cold water at all, it is expressing a concern shared by many both in and outside Parliament. The Counter-terrorism bill will not be lost – whatever happens. What could happen is that there is such overwhelming opposition in the Lords chamber that it will become the subject of ‘ping-pong’ where it shuttles between the two chambers until some kind of compromise is reached.
I suspect that the 42-day pre-charge detention clause will be defeated in the Lords and thus go back to the Commons. If the Tories and a significant number of crossbenchers continue to oppose it the Government will have to compromise unless they invoke the Parliament Act (there are technical reasons why this would be difficult with this bill) – it may mean many late nights and lots of deals being made outside the chamber.
The Government may wish to hurry things along but the Lords will not allow themselves to be rushed on matters of principle.
Dear Lady D’Souza,
You paint a fascinating picture of your place of work and I am heartened to hear that you are working hard to get all the work presented done. I do wonder sometimes how you all manage to read through and evaluate so much legislation. Especially with the sensitive nature of some it.
So I guess my main question for me has to be, in a year on average how much reading does your average peer have to do in order to be able to make an informed decision on every issue? Oh and do you get any help compiling the information that you think everyone is going to need.
Thank you
James Clarke, good question! Here’s what I do – I decide which bills I either have, or should have, an interest in. Clearly one has to read the bill itself and if it has already been debated in the Commons, then the Hansard report.If a bill is contentious and especially if it touches on fundamental issues to with liberty then it is inevitable that various pressure groups, NGOs, human rights organisations and the like will provide briefs – these are invaluable but probably best read while keeping in mind their different agendas.
Each bill is issued with ‘Explanatory Notes’ that put into ordinary english (bills are often phrased in legalise)the purpose of the bill and what each clause aims to
accomplish.These notes provided by the Government if it is a public bill, are helpful.
So quite a lot of reading already, but there is more if you aim to provide information for your grouping as I do as convenor. Strictly speaking I should read each and every bill, thoroughly absorb it, note the contentious issues, read all the external briefs AND read every amendment that is tabled during its passage through the Lords. ~But, hey I also have a life to lead.
Skim or speed reading (down the centre of the page) is a real advantage, you can get the sense of an article or a bill or whatever in a very few minutes and then go back to the bits that you didn’t already know or which need further thought. I recommend it!
You seem to evoke History – with a capital ‘H.’ I am sure the place smells of it. I am afraid I cannot name a single member of the Lords of any era who has ever done anything particularly worth knowing about, but then I’m probably under-educated. My heroes are people that actually DID things, rather than sitting around in sumptuous luxury. For example, Joseph Chamberlain may have been a parliamentarian, but he actually managed to change the standard of living in Birmingham, not through bills, but through Action.
Which is why I’m somewhat dubious about parliament. Year in, year out, you sit there reading dozens or hundreds of bills. But what of it? Has all this legislation helped anyone? Partly, of course. There have been many important laws recently, not least the human rights act. However, hat are the big problems in society? Poverty? Crime? Terrorism? NHS services? Education? How can sitting around in Westminster help any of this? Things need to be Done in the Real World to deal with these issues; they can’t just be willed away. My experience of the NHS is that if we were to have significantly less involvement by Whitehall and Parliament, we would have significantly fewer problems and more resources. In any case Parliament spends far too much time on irrelevant issues (most likely political point scoring), while ignoring very real problems; for instance, the rise of the BNP in Staffordshire.
L Tate, I suppose one way of answering your points is to imagine a government without Parliament? The rule of law, the cornerstone of any democratic society, requires there to be laws in the first place. Admittedly some laws enacted by Parliament are not the zenith of vision and sense but others definitely are.
You mention the Human Rights Act – what about all that legislation that has helped to ensure equality before the HRA came into force, what about laws to criminalise toxic waste emissions, laws that govern travel safety, taxation, monopolies, financial malpractice, building safety, the list is long.
it seems to me that you are arguing for a state without either laws or the means to refine existing legal prescriptions. Far be it from me to extol the virtues of the House of Lords but I honestly think it is somewhat unfair to describe it as ‘sitting about’, and as for ‘sumptuous luxury’ – you should vist us sometime and see the conditions under which we work. Note Lord Norton blog on office space!
However, I would agree with you that laws alone do not make for a gentle and humane society but they do provide the framework for society to work, albeit imperfectly.