Both Houses rose yesterday for the summer recess. The Lords finished its main business shortly before two o’clock and then adjourned until 6.50 p.m. when the Lord Speaker announced Royal Assent to two measures (the Housing and Regeneration Act and the Crossrail Act). There were eighteen peers in the chamber to hear the announcement. The…
Lord Tyler makes some interesting points but none that undermines the points advanced against electing the second chamber – though he does at least avoid some of the cliches advanced by proponents of election. There are two particular points I would make. First, the House is variously characterised as a House of experience and expertise. …
I have mentioned in response to comments that I can be something of an iconoclast and variously challenge claims when they become accepted wisdom (and basically sustained by lazy or non-existent thinking). At times, it appears I can achieve this without planning to. I have been at meetings when I have offered what I regard as fairly straightforward…
According to The Sunday Times, the Government is planning to change the law so that people who have had certain mental health problems and are presently barred from being elected to Parliament can stand for election. People who have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act are barred from standing even if they have made…
I have previously written about the material we receive as parliamentarians. One of the publications that arrives regularly on my desk is The German Times, ‘a monthly newspaper for Europe’. In the July issue, the executive editor, Theo Sommer, writes about the outcome of the referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon treaty. He raises issues…
