There was a vote in the House on Wednesday on an amendment to the Identity Documents Bill moved by Lord Hunt of King’s Heath, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers who voted (178) outnumbered Labour peers (162). However, the amendment was carried by 220 votes to 188. The Government defeat…
It has been reported in the papers today that tomorrow will see the announcement of 50 new peers, chosen to give the Coalition a majority in the Lords. By the time you read this, the names may have been announced. I hope they will not all be donors to the major parties. Reflecting on Baroness…
In the debate on Members Leaving the House, referred to in Lord Tyler’s recent blog (Exit Routes 2) Lord Hunt of Kings Heath referred to the fact that voting by crossbenchers was, in his word, “limited”. (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/101116-0001.htm#10111631000356). While our benches protested in a mild kind of way with an “Oh!”, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath…
Following on from my last blog post about Member’s Leaving the House, readers might like to read our debate about this on Tuesday. Reading people’s comments on my last post and considering the Working Group’s report further, led me to think again about whether there really should be any financial package at all offered to…
As seasoned observers of the House of Lords will know the Salisbury -Addison convention enjoins the Lords to respect manifesto commitments. The question arises as to which manifesto commitment the Lords should now respect given that neither the Tory nor the Liberal Democrat manifestos are on the table. There are three possibilities: The Salisbury –…
There are two Bills before the House which give me cause for concern. The Public Bodies Bill gives excessive power to Ministers and is discussed in several posts below. The main problem is that Ministers want to take powers that enable them to wind up, merge, change staff or sell off QUANGOS without proper Parliamentary…
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies bill, to give it its proper name, is still going on and by my reckoning will pause half way through at about midnight. It will be resumed tomorrow – an unusual procedure but one enforced by the sheer number of speakers – 55 in all. Not only are most…
Last week I was in Brussels to participate in a joint parliamentary meeting of national parliamentarians and members of the European parliament to discuss Europe’s response to the challenges beyond the current crisis. The British parliament was represented by two members of the House of Lords, Lord Haskins and myself. Most of the participants were…
To most people the very notion of the unelected Lords debating amd voting on electoral reform will seem very odd. Indeed there are those who argue that it is none of our business. I disagree. The Lords has a constitutional role to scrutinise the Government, to debate and report on issues of current concern, and…
