Category Archives: Lord Soley

Lords reform – Part three

Lord Soley 26/04/2012 – 11:02 pm

This is the third part of my article on Lords reform and follows from the two below. Read this and then prepare yourself in body and soul for the last terrifying instalment! This brings me to the critically important issue of the scrutiny of legislation. Select Committees in the Commons do a good job on ministerial departments but on Bills, which become the final laws, the Commons scrutiny is s […]

Lords reform – continued

Lord Soley 26/04/2012 – 12:24 pm

This section deals with another problem associated with the Government draft Bill. It follows on from my post below. I agreed to go to the Lords in 2005 and I remember going in for the first time and seeing a line of wheel chairs plugged in to charging points – and the debate was on assisted dying! Had I made the mistake of my life? Well, yes I thought I had - but experience has given me a […]

Lords Reform – a mugs game

Lord Soley 21/04/2012 – 8:56 pm

As a newly elected MP in 1979 it seemed obvious to me that we needed to elect the Lords. No question about it! Unelected legislators in the age of democracy – it must be wrong! So like most MPs I took it for granted that Labour’s election manifesto of 1910 must finally be honoured. I now have a memorial mug given to me by Margaret Becket MP with the quotation from that election saying: T […]

Flagellation can be fun!

Lord Soley 21/03/2012 – 1:04 pm

My good friend Baroness Murphy observes that just because you are mad it doesn't mean you are necessarily wrong! (See her post below) My evidence for the Health and Social Care Bill being a  mad policy choice is that everyone including the Government will suffer for bringing in a Bill that was quite unnescessary. For those in doubt about the quality of the NHS which is now seen around the wor […]

Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Soley 20/03/2012 – 10:48 am

This Bill finally completed its weary journey through the House of Lords yesterday. I am still trying to work out whether the Government was mad or bad in pushing it through. It is bad because it will increase bureaucracy and costs without improving front line services. It is mad because the Government has alienated the very people it wanted to please - the NHS workers and the public. There ar […]