When a vote is called, peers can vote Content or Not Content. The voting figures do not always correspond with how many peers are present. On occasion, some members abstain from voting. The reason the Government lost a vote last week on the Academies Bill was because of a combination of some Liberal Democrat peers…
As readers are well aware, the House of Lords has a diverse membership. We have peers drawn from a range of ethnic, socio-economic and national backgrounds. This week’s quiz is the first of several designed to identify some of the variety in the membership. As usual, the first two readers to supply the correct answers will…
In replying to a Question on Tuesday about the Maldives, Foreign Office Minister, Lord Howell of Guildford, made the passing observation that “The Maldives has of course been very strong in its support for sensible and balanced concerns over climate change, including having a Cabinet meeting underwater”, adding: ” though I understand there are no plans…
Speaking in the debate on working practices last night, Lord Lucas made a point that he had already covered in one of his posts on this blog. That is, the problem arising from having a coalition with enough votes in the Lords to command a clear majority. After 1999, no one party enjoyed a majority…
We had a very useful debate yesterday on the working practices of the House. The debate was wide-ranging and enabled us to press the case for strengthening procedures for legislative and non-legislative scrutiny. There were some good proposals advanced and broad support for enhancing pre and post-legislative scrutiny, as well as enabling Bills introduced in…
