Well I hope you all saw me on the telly this morning…I was first row up on the left between Ladies Howarth of Breckland and Pitkeathley. Being lady peers, our spouses/partners had been banished to the galleries above whereas the peeresses with their tiaras sat right behind us in the Chamber…now that’s not quite equality…
Regular readers will know that I am sceptical of the ability of the two Houses of Parliament to deal effectively with legislation. However, exceptions prove the rule. Last Thursday, as part of the prorogation process, a Private Member’s Bill I have been piloting through the House of Lords received its Royal Assent. And I think…
The Queen’s speech on this Wednesday will give us the programme of Bills that the Government intends to introduce in the six months before the 2010 election campaign starts. I am thinking of speaking in the debate next week on Business which is stangely allied in the programme for the day with Culture. I would…
For this week’s quiz, I thought I would focus on women in the House. Various attempts were made to enable women to sit in the Lords prior to the 1958 Life Peerages Act. The passage of the Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act 1919 was taken by some as suggesting that women may be eligible for admission…
Parliament was prorogued at 4.30 p.m. today. It was a quiet end end to a tumultuous session. There was no last minute ‘ping pong’ between the chambers. The absence of such ‘ping pong’ reflected the influence rather than the weakness of the Lords. On recent measures – some of the big Bills going through the…
It is almost unbearable when the names of young men and women killed in Afghanistan are read out in the Chamber of the House of Lords. After we returned from the summer recess the roll call was no less than 38 and it was more than many of us could cope with. The question hangs…
The afternoon after the night before, and here is my report, as promised. So much for the claim that the House of Lords makes the Commons – and the Government majority there – think again. David Davis MP, former Conservative Shadow Home Secretary and leading campaigner against attacks on civil liberties, previously described Minister’s attempts to…
This is both a new post and a follow-on to Lord Tyler’s last. Last night was an exciting evening in the Chamber. The Commons response to the Lords amendments in the Coroners and Justice bill returned to our House for consideration. The process by which a Commons amendment A (usually a re-insertion of the former…
I’ve written here on LordsoftheBlog before about ‘ping-pong’. As we approach ‘prorogation’ – the term used to describe the bringing to an end of a parliamentary session, and the short hiatus until the next one – Bills are going back and forth between the two Houses once again. Most particularly, the Government has suffered defeats…
