In commenting on the responses to my post on prostitution and the Policing and Crime Bill, McDuff has written: “This comment thread is, in fact, bloody excellent. How such a thing can happen on the internet is beyond me.” I rather share his positive evaluation. The post has attracted some insightful comments, including from people who…
Earlier this year, the Constitution Committee published a report on emergency, or fast track, legislation. Very little study has been undertaken of such legislation, even though there is a general recognition that legislating in haste may not necessarily produce good legislation. The report made various recommendations for change, not least that there should be a…
Just a quick one. I mentioned before that a peer must hire robes for State Opening. Until yesterday Ede and Ravenscroft had run out and I was stranded. But yippee, yesterday they had a cancellation so I will go the party after all! It’ll cost me £124 in case you wondered…..
Yesterday afternoon we concluded discussion of the Commons amendments in the Health Bill. There had been some surprising inserts by the Government in the Commons, in relation to the de-authorisation of NHS Foundation Trusts and ‘the private patients cap’, (both of these are something of a health policy minority sport so I won’t say much…
This happened on Wednesday 4th November 2009 and is fully reported in Hansard, cols 317 – 331. I give below my opening paragraphs, and two paragraphs from the government’s reply by Lord West of Spithead, a Home Office minister. There were four other speakers. “My Lords, I start from the proposition that it is wrong…
I am writing this blog because I am a member of a House of Lords select committee that has recently published a report on the Future of European Union Financial Regulation and Supervision. We are debating this report tomorrow, TUESDAY, and it brings up some serious questions. After the financial crisis of the last year,…
There was a debate on defence issues on Friday inevitably dominated by Afghanistan but it went wider than that. I referred to the importance for our troops of ensuring that we did not try and score political points in these debates. You can read the debate here and see what you think. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/91106-0008.htm I also used…
During the course of the Second World War, there were fourteen occasions when the Palace of Westminster suffered bomb damage. On 10 May 1941, both the chamber of the Commons and Westminster Hall were on fire as a result of incendiary bombing. Walter Elliot, an MP who was on fire-watching duty, declared ‘Let the pseudo-Gothic…
I have a number of prints of the Palace of Westminster from the period shortly after it was built. They show that housing occupied the land between the Palace and Lambeth Bridge. Since then, the buildings have been demolished and replaced by Victoria Tower Gardens. As regular readers will know from an earlier post, it…
