Rarely have I felt more positive about a proposed piece of legislation than the higher education provisions that we are about to vote on tomorrow. The progressive Browne plan for free student education, with the Government, not families, paying up front a more realistic tuition fee to individual universities is a vast improvement on the…
In the debate on Members Leaving the House, referred to in Lord Tyler’s recent blog (Exit Routes 2) Lord Hunt of Kings Heath referred to the fact that voting by crossbenchers was, in his word, “limited”. (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101116-0001.htm#10111631000356). While our benches protested in a mild kind of way with an “Oh!”, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath…
November 11th, Armistice Day was always a special day when I was a child because it is my Mother’s birthday. She was 5 when the Great War ended; one of her earliest memories is of her Mother’s joy at the news. We all wore our poppies for just two days, the Saturday of the Poppy…
Liam Byrne MP, the opposition Labour party front bench Treasury spokesman came to talk to the crossbenchers on Wednesday about the forthcoming ‘Bonfire of the Quangos Bill’, otherwise known formally as ‘The Public Bodies Bill’ which starts in the Lords with second reading next Tuesday. As is so often the case the Bill does not…
The second reading debate yesterday on Lord Morris of Manchester’s Private Members Bill attracted a fair number of contributions. The purpose of the Bill is to provide support for people who have been infected with certain diseases as a result of receiving contaminated blood and blood products supplied by the National Health Service. The Bill…
