I see that in response to Lord Taylor’s recent post, Alex has commented: “there is no point to the house of lords – they are unelected and just use up our taxes. their only power is to delay bills by one year”. That completely misunderstands the House of Lords. The cost to the public purse…
There are three noteworthy features of the appointment of Peter Mandelson, Stephen Carter and Paul Myners to ministerial rank and the elevation of all three to the peerage. First, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform means that the Lords acquires a…
I recently attended the 2008 session of the Parliamentary Conference on the World Trade Organisation. This was in Geneva. The conference was attended by 245 Members of Parliament, from 87 different countries. There were also officials and observers from various international organisations in attendance. I wondered whether this was going to be another “talking shop”…
Successive Prime Ministers have made the House of Lords their whipping boy whenever they reshuffled Ministers. Gordon Brown is no exception, and the consequences of his latest game of musical chairs looks bad both for the Government and for the House. We knew that Lord (Jeff) Rooker wanted to retire from the Front Bench, after…
I’ve been following the blog during recess but have been too preoccupied with family matters to add my own. But things in the Murphy/Robb household are getting back to normal so I must get back to the blog. All kinds of matters happened during recess which during term would have led to endless debates, questions and probing in…
The ministerial changes announced today have a major impact on the House of Lords. The Leader of the House, Baroness Ashton, leaves Government to become an EU Commissioner (in place of Peter Mandelson). Her place is taken by the Chief Whip, Baroness Royall. A new Chief Whip has yet to be announced. Peter Mandelson will…
I spoke last week to students at Franklin College, Grimsby, and to Hansard Society scholars in London on the British Constitution. The topic, as it tends to, generated a range of questions. Yesterday, I spoke on the role of the House of Lords to Y12 and Y13 students at Brackenhale School in Bracknell, Berkshire. What…
The wives of male peers are styled Ladies. The husbands of women peers receive no prefix. Now, with civil partnerships, Iain Dale has done a post on the question asked in a blogpost by Shane Greer of the Telegraph: ‘in the event that a member of a civil partnership becomes a Lord (or indeed a Lady), shouldn’t the other…
The House has acquired two new members. The House of Lords Appointments Commission published on Monday the names of two new cross-bench peers: Susan Campbell CBE, the Chair of UK Sport; she is also Chair of the Youth Sports Trust and has previously been British Colleges Pentathlon Champion. David Pannick QC, a barrister specialising in in public law,…
