On behalf of the Lord Speaker I visited Dauntsey’s School, near Devizes in Wiltshire, at the end of last week. Invited many months ago I rashly suggested that “Bring Back Guy Fawkes?” was a suitable November discussion-starter for Year 12/13, but that I would tread more delicately with a theme for the later lecture of…
A couple of weekend quiz questions. In an earlier post, I asked readers if they could name members of the Lords who had won medals in Olympic Games. The two most obvious names were quickly offered: Lord Coe (Seb Coe) a multiple Gold medallist in athletics and Lord Moynihan (Colin Moynihan) a Silver medallist in rowing. However, the…
Sometimes one’s speech in debate doesn’t quite go according to plan. On Tuesday afternoon 17 November, Lord Warner had raised a short debate on the Charter for Dying Well produced by the organisation Dignity in Dying http://www.dignityindying.org.uk. The Charter contained much that everyone could agree with but also included a call for the legalisation of the…
I was in a meeting in the Lords last week when someone referred to Westminster as ‘the mother of Parliaments’. It is not uncommon to hear such a reference. However, the 19th Century politician John Bright, who coined the phrase ‘the mother of Parliaments’, was not referring to Westminster. What he said, in a speech…
When I first entered the House, it was not unusual for the House to sit late to get through particular pieces of legislation. On occasion I spoke on, or moved, amendments around midnight or even well after. Now the practice is to try to rise by 10.00 p.m. If legislation is being considered, the House will rise…
I received yesterday a copy of the survey of public attitudes towards conduct in public life carried out by BMRB Social Research for the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The survey, conducted earlier this year, covers the media as well as politicians. Its findings on the media tend to reinforce the points made in my…
Lords of the Blog has been running since January 2008 and was launched in March 2008. An evaluation of the first six months of the pilot was carried out by the Hansard Society: everything about the blog – from the ways that authors respond to visitors, to the layout of the website – has been…
Regularly, I submit questions to the Government requiring a written answer. One of my recent questions asked whether the Government would conduct a national survey of asbestos in public buildings. According to campaigners, around 4000 people die per year from the effects of asbestos. Some of these are nurses, doctors and teachers who work in…
There is frequent discussion of a decline in trust in Parliament. According to Eurobarometer data from earlier this year, 27 per cent of the population trust Parliament. This compares with 34 per cent six months before. In some countries, such as Denmark, more than 70 per cent of those questioned trust Parliament. There may thus be…
