The debate on the “Gracious Address” (never the ‘Queen’s Speech” please note) carries on for 5 days, as Lady D’Souza has already remarked. Yesterday we had the debate on “Home, Legal and Constitutional Affairs”, with 45 speakers, 2 maiden speeches, Lord Bach kicking off for the Home Team and Lord West of Spithead following up…
Well I hope you all saw me on the telly this morning…I was first row up on the left between Ladies Howarth of Breckland and Pitkeathley. Being lady peers, our spouses/partners had been banished to the galleries above whereas the peeresses with their tiaras sat right behind us in the Chamber…now that’s not quite equality…
This is both a new post and a follow-on to Lord Tyler’s last. Last night was an exciting evening in the Chamber. The Commons response to the Lords amendments in the Coroners and Justice bill returned to our House for consideration. The process by which a Commons amendment A (usually a re-insertion of the former…
Just a quick one. I mentioned before that a peer must hire robes for State Opening. Until yesterday Ede and Ravenscroft had run out and I was stranded. But yippee, yesterday they had a cancellation so I will go the party after all! It’ll cost me £124 in case you wondered…..
Yesterday afternoon we concluded discussion of the Commons amendments in the Health Bill. There had been some surprising inserts by the Government in the Commons, in relation to the de-authorisation of NHS Foundation Trusts and ‘the private patients cap’, (both of these are something of a health policy minority sport so I won’t say much…
