Yesterday, the House broke with tradition and burst into applause. The occasion was the valedictory speech of Lord Jenkin of Roding. Under the House of Lords Reform Act, which took effect earlier this year, peers can now resign from the House. The Procedure Committee produced proposals, agreed by the House, to mark the retirement of…
President Hollande of France has welcomed the award of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics to Jean Tirole as being ‘good for France.’ French economist Jean Tirole’s award was for his work on the financial crises, oligopolies and network industries. He is one of the most influential economists of our time; his publications on industrial organisation…
On Friday 12th December the Lords gave a Second Reading to Lord Lester and Lord Marks’ Cohabitation Rights Bill that would give many marriage rights and responsibilities to those who cohabited for two years, or who have children. I have blogged about this before (http://lordsoftheblog.net/2012/01/26/against-my-will/, http://lordsoftheblog.net/2011/01/07/love-and-marriage/, and so has Baroness Murphy http://lordsoftheblog.net/2009/03/13/cohabitation-bill/). I first wrote about…
xt141211 Binnie TTT Review of spill impact xt141212 to de Mauley on TTT Thames Tideway Tunnel no longer necessary – new data shows Thames already complies with EU Directive. Analysis of new data from the Environment Agency, obtained under Freedom of Information Act, means that the Thames already complies with the European Urban Waste Water…
The House had the Second Reading of the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Bill last week – a bill on which the Government suffered a surprise defeat at the very end of proceedings in the House of Commons as a result of which the pub “tie” – by which brewers give financial and other support…
I wrote to the Foreign Office Minister about the case of Aasia Bibi in Pakistan, asking him to arrange for her appeal against the death sentence for blasphemy to be observed continuously by British and EU diplomats, when it eventually comes to be heard in Pakistan’s Supreme Court. It is a kind of test case,…
I asked HMG whether they will accelerate the conclusion of requests for resettlement by Afghan interpreters and other personnel employed by the UK, either by offering refugee states in the UK, or by assisted resettlement in other countries. Lord Astor of Hever gave me the following reply :” The ex-gratia redundancy scheme includes an offer…
Network Rail – Government owned, over spent and underperforming, according to the ORR. What next? Network Rail is over spending its budget and under-performing on maintenance and renewals, but does not give the ORR enough data to enable them to be properly held to account. (ORR’s quarterly Rail monitor for the period April to September…
Something funny appears to be happening in the Department of Health. Some time ago, the government asked the Chief Medical Officers to review the accepted “Safe Drinking Levels”, in the light of more recent research, to see whether the 21 units per week (for men) and 14 units (for women) were still “best evidence” limits.…
