Frozen Immobility in Parliament

This is the snow scene that greeted me and my camera last week.  It has come to symbolise for me the state of many minds in Westminster.

This week I asked the Government what they were going to do about reform of the Lords, since their White Paper was published some seven months ago. In the light of recent events, I suggested that “any delay in this House would be interpreted by the public as complacency and special interest.”  By this time, I was being loudly barracked by Conservative Peers shouting “too long”, although I had taken no more time than some slower speakers.  But I also recalled – amid the loud protests – the 1999 recommendation of the Joint Comittee on Parliamentary Privilege (on which I served) that “the House of Commons has power to suspend its members, and it would be anomalous and undesirable if this were not the position in the House of Lords.”

That was ten years ago.  “Too long” indeed!