At a meeting earlier this week a fellow peer said that most people still don’t have a clue as to what we do. So here is a summary version of my week.
MONDAY: Office to answer mail, e-mails, brief PA, meet on individual basis with several fellow crossbenchers to discuss forthcoming business, possible debate topics, future MoD visits, and the like. Our office is tiny and houses three people and sometimes feels like Piccadilly Circus.
Oral Questions in the Chamber and then the last day of the Banking Bill – Ministers must feel relief.
Leaders’ meeting to discuss current events – and digest a number of papers for the following morning. Have a meeting with three other crossbench peers to do some brainstorming; this is a mini think-tank I have set up to review from time to time the work of the Independent Crossbenchers and to talk around any structural/political issues
Attend North London Chinese Association dinner at Royal Albert Docks – takes a good hour to get there and find the restaurant. Speak on need for Chinese representation in Parliament, get home by midnight.
TUESDAY: Get in by 8.30 to answer all the mail and write all the letters I failed to finish yesterday. Write up Minutes of last evening’s think-tank meeting. Coffee with Viscount Montgomery who wishes to discuss aspects of the House machinery at length. Regular monthly meeting with the Lord Speaker to exchange views and brief her on crossbench issues. Another Leaders meeting to give opinions on papers received yesterday. Oral Questions and another long committee day on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill.
House Committee (this is the primary committee to which most other committees ultimately report and is chaired by the Lord Speaker). Meeting with the Government Chief Whip. Supper with a colleague. Meet Lord Adebowale and once again try to persuade him to become a blogger – he is willing but also really busy (and actually thinks it may be more difficult than it is!).
WEDNESDAY: Meeting with Opposition Chief Whip on forthcoming business. Prepare agenda for crossbench weekly meeting and brief staff. Meet with various colleagues and then with the LibDem Acting Chief Whip. Chair crossbench meeting at which the Leader (Baroness Royall) speaks to us. She is bombarded with questions all of which she answers quite straighforwardly.
Oral questions in Chamber at which I ask if the UK Government will make representation to the SADC Countries who are the guarantors of the recent settlement in Zimbabwe to lobby for the release of human rights activists and political detainees.
Rush to and back from the dentist in time to meet Christine Lee who is now legal counsel to the Chinese Government in the UK and busy with the recent incident involving the shoe thrown at the Chinese Premier during his visit to London. Begin writing up Minutes of crossbench meeting
Attend the Channel 4 Political Awards dinner and home relatively early
THURSDAY: cancellation of a meeting (agreed with a colleague the other day that we must be the saddest people because we both get very excited when something is cancelled!) which allows me a blissful hour and half to read all the press clippings piling up on my desk for the last three days.
Consider a Private Notice Question (PNQ) which has been tabled by Lord Taverne of the LibDems and concerns the Government’s intention to deny the Dutch MP, Mr Geert Wilders, entry to the UK. The criteria for a PNQ are importance, topicality and urgency. This was all three but I feared that the question might itself lead to a kind of slanging match in the Chamber. However, it was allowed by the Lord Speaker and I took the opportunity amongst many others to question the Government’s action. I do not much like aligning myself with the UKIP member who had invited Mr Wilders to show his film in Parliament but it is a free speech issue as all those who also asked questions pointed out.
Privileges Committee Meeting – a long and thorough couple of hours.
Tea with two crossbench colleagues to discuss a new project. Back to my office to do more letters, answer voice mail, do e-mails, clear my desk, discuss the coming week with my PA and our research intern and then off to present the award to the crossbench researcher of the year at the HOUSE Magazine Awards ceremony.
FRIDAY: meeting in Cheltenham and then to Gloucester to record a BBC interview and home to catch up on domestic mail (including a parking ticket), read background papers for speeches I will give on Afghanistan and House of Lords Reform at the end of February.
Feed birds, water plants , e-mail friends and family etc and PACK for departure to Namibia tomorrow as part of Parliamentary Delegation.
That’s it for this week, folks.
“That’s it” … such an understatement! I would wish for you some well-deserved rest this weekend, but with your travels, that seems somewhat unlikely. Still, I hope you at least have a pleasant flight…
And another thanks for this summary; I must enjoyed reading it as well and am subsequently quite impressed with your work.
A well-written article. It’s nice to be able to get a job in which you can make a difference.
You come over as a person who has found such a job and who does continue to make a difference.
I was a touch surprised when I looked to see you’d only been a LP since ’04 and already the convenor!
I’m always somewhat puzzled and your article doesn’t quite explain how you structure decisions like ‘possible debate topics’ when you ‘lead’ such a disparate group who hold such a range of interests and opinions.(I suspect with Cross Benchers it must be like herding cats) Does it rely more on multiple reasonable accommodations rather than structural organisation?
I know it’s been much discussed elsewhere but I think many of us are glad Geert Wilders was raised in the lords as it did raise fundamental free speech questions.
A lovely start Baroness D’Souza, and clearly you keep yourself out of mischief – but you do gloss over some things which tantalise our curiosity ! Like what you had to eat at the ‘Chinese’ dinner, and at the Channel 4 political awards – any your views on the winners, not to mention any gossip…
I am also very pleased you stuck up for free speech. I find it profoundly depressing that one cannot stick up for the right of people like Wilders to be subjected to a debate without being accused of sharing or, worse still, endorsing his views.
There are some awful protests in America at the burials of US Service personnel by religious zealots at the issue of gays in the military. But whilst Americans find these distasteful, I don’t see anyone there advocating banning such expressions of free speech, as they are not willing to see un-constitutional restrictions on their First Amendment rights – and good for them.
p.s. – Heard the interview on ‘Broadcasting House’ and I hadn’t realised how much work you had done for ‘Freedom of Speech’. I’m so pleased someone is – although I share your view that, twenty years on, if another ‘Satanic Verses’ were published today then I’m not sure it would be defended to anything like the same extent.
Hello folks – just back from Namibia and will do a short blog on it when I have had a bit of shut-eye.
Thank you AnInnocentAbroad and Matt – very kind.
In answer to your very proper queries – structuring debate topics (Croft) is not easy and I sometimes think that the actual topic emerges in much the way that it was said Conservative leaders used to! I suppose it is a combination of the following criteria – has the topic had an airing recently, how interesting would it be to the whole House, how important is it (eg a debate on whether or not the UK should have Trident) and above all what is the view of fellow crossbenchers?
We (the crossbenchers) have a weekly meeting and every few months I list the debate topics. After everyone has had a couple of weeks or so to think about it, I put it to the vote. This ensures that the crossbench long debates at least follow some kind of consensus.
Food at various functions and throughout the Namibia visit is/was plentiful and often really good. Nouvelle cuisine is the vogue at London events but in Africa unless you eat a lot your hosts worry that you are sick. Hence a long spell of London dining is now needed!
The free speech issue is a desperately important one and deserves more blog than I have time for at the moment (Bedd Gelert). Suffice it to say that this vital freedom and perhaps the cornerstone of democracy needs to be watched like a hawk and defended like the proverbial lioness.
You are looking tired and I sense you are feeling undervalued? Don’t let things get to you; delegate more! Take more time off? If there must be one thousand peers in the house, whom would you choose to sit on your knee?