Baroness Murphy is right – the Usual Channels do seem to have broken down at the moment. Why has this happened? What are the Usual Channels for in the Lords?

In a self regulating Chamber and without a powerful Speaker to make the kind of decisions taken by Mr Speaker in the Commons, the Usual Channels have a very important job to do for the WHOLE House.

The Government Chief Whip has, of course, to deliver the Government’s business, but, also has a responsibility for the conduct of the whole of business in the House. The House (including the official opposition) understand that the Government needs to get its business in a timely fashion. The House is also acutely aware  of the responsibility to bring its critical faculties to bear on legislation, and it must have the time and the ability to carry out this function. So if the Government has overloaded the legislative programme this is not the fault of members of the House of Lords. The Government needs to reassess its programme – as the last Government did from time to time. This may be what needs to happen here.

As Health Whip and Minister, who worked on three or four Health bills and helped put through the huge Equalities Bill, I cannot remember agreeing to schedule business of any substance without ensuring consultation and agreement with Earl Howe – the then Shadow Health Minister, and indeed sometimes also the Lib Dem opposition front bench. On the Equalities Bill Baroness Royall convened a meeting of the major players from across the House to discuss how to get the Bill through.  We knew the Chief Whip was in charge but without doubt better decisions were ones taken with good communication.

Successive Government Chief Whips – Dennis Carter, Bruce Grocott, Jan Royall and Steve Bassam made it clear to ministerial colleagues that we had a responsibility to the whole House as well as to get the Government’s business through. As it was explained to us there are two matters which give any Government a huge advantage.

First, Ministers are paid a full time salary and should be available to the House whenever required. This was in sharp contrast to the opposition and cross bench peers who were not salaried and were often holding down full time or part time jobs or running businesses. The Lords is a House of part time members.

Second, as Ministers we had huge resources at our disposal. In my case I had the Department of Health to write speeches, do research and be there in the box to send me messages whenever I needed them. I knew that, for example, Earl Howe, Baroness Barker, Lord McColl, Baroness Tonge, Baroness Warsi and Lord Hunt (on the Equalities Bill) and all the other Opposition front bench, may have some support and briefing, but often they would have researched and written their own speeches and notes. I was full of wonder and admiration at their lucidity and hard work. This can mean researching and writing speeches for 5 – 7 hours of debate in Chamber. There is an inequality of resource which has to be factored in by the Government when they are organising the business of the House.

In addition there is a need for flexibility. With the agreement of Usual Channels I was not alone in very occasionally agreeing to change the order of business to allow someone who for some reason was not able to stay late at night to deal with a particular issue. I have in mind the Portability of Care and the Contaminated Blood debates.

This is one reason why some of us are so deeply disturbed about the vote in the House to put the Welfare Reform Bill into a Grand Committee when some disabled and other members had made it very clear that this would not be fair either to them or indeed for disabled people who might want to observe the passage of the Bill. I think it is the job of the Usual Channels to sort these matters out. It is a terrible thing for the Coalition Government to use its political majority in House to force a significant group in the House to conduct business in a way they have said disadvantages them. If the Coalition Government intends to use its political majority to force through business management decisions – I am not sure what the future holds.

I hope that the Government Chief Whip will bear in mind the many times the last Government organised the House business to suit a Conservative Opposition front bench made up predominately of part time peers. It was usual to try to accommodate work commitments but there were other matters too. One new member of the Conservative Front bench had a family holiday booked when appointed, so consideration of a Bill was reorganised; another peer needed to attend the Chelsea Flower Show for business reasons – again the schedule was moved by a week. Prize Giving’s, Christmas Concerts, hospital appointments, weddings and bereavements and many other matters were taken into consideration from time to time in the scheduling of business. Give and take in a part time House. It is the only way to do it, unless we are elected, full time, paid and professional (my personal preference).

I think it is possible that this Government and this Government Whip’s Office sadly may have lost sight of the need to take the part time nature of most members’ attendance into consideration when scheduling the business. Perhaps in their panic to try and cram a quart of legislation into a pint of scrutiny time they have forgotten that the Government Whip’s Office has a duty to the whole House. It is possible that they are being given a terrible time by Downing Street and the Common’s Whips Office – who never understood the conventions (for example, no guillotine) of the Lords and often not take this into consideration when working out their business timetable.

Usual Channels need to get back on track