The House of Lords Constitution Committee is required to report to the House on Bills of constitutional significance. The Committee’s practice is to publish a report once a Bill arrives in the House. However, the constitutional significance of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which has just been introduced in the Commons, is such that the…
Each session, the House of Lords not only re-appoints its investigative sessional select committees (communications, constitution, economic affairs, European Union, international relations, and science and technology), it also appoints ad hoc committees to examine particular topics during the course of the session. It used to appoint one a session, but it moved in the 2010-15 Parliament…
There was an interesting result in a division today on an amendment to the Wales Bill. The vote was tied 222 to 222. Where there is a tied vote, which occasionally happens, the Lord Speaker, or peer on the Woolsack, has no casting vote. The rule that determines the outcome is straightforward. There has to be a majority…
There is much speculation about the Prime Minister ‘calling’ an early election. A Prime Minister cannot ‘call’ an early election. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 put paid to that. I have previously explained the provisions of the Act. The PM can go to the House of Commons to get it to vote (by a 2/3…
The House has just lost one of its oldest, but also one of its most active, members in Lord Walton of Detchant, who has died at the age of 93. He was a regular attender and speaker until a few weeks ago, when he was taken ill. He was professor of neurology at Newcastle University…
