I promised to take another look at the whole process that is commonly referred to as ‘parliamentary ping-pong’, when we came to the final exchanges before the long summer recess. On Monday, the Lords were examining two major Bills, which could have resulted in further shuttling up and down the corridor between the two Houses. …
For nearly seven hours yesterday, we worked hard on the Parliamentary Standards Bill in the Lords Chamber. The Government gave way on several of our amendments, either accepting them in full or proposing new amendments of their own. The Bill is now hardly recognisable from the mess it was in when it arrived from the…
As a direct result of Liberal Democrat Peers’ votes to avoid delay on the Parliamentary Standards Bill, we have been able to bring sufficient pressure to bear on Ministers to gain an extra day for a whole raft of amendments to improve the legislation. Peter Riddell is quite right that for the Lords to stand…
Do you too suffer from the “Friday Afternoon Syndrome” ? When colleagues pile up on your desk the tasks for which you have been waiting for weeks, so that they can go off for the weekend – or a week’s holiday – without a care in the world ? That’s what the Government is…
I wonder whether anybody else has examined the contrast between the two electoral systems used to produce Speakers, in the two Houses of Parliament. In the Lords, in 2007, we used an Alternative Vote (AV) system to elect our excellent Lord Speaker, Helene Hayman. In the Commons last night, they employed the “exhaustive” (and exhausting)…
