A very interesting day on the Lords Select Committee on Communications yesterday. In the morning we went to visit the nearly completed extension to Broadcasting House in Portland Place. The inside is magnificent, although by no means all fitted out yet. There will be a huge news room, and separate activities on the different floors around…
We are about half way through the committee stages of the Health and Social Care Bill; yesterday afternoon and evening we ploughed through the 7th day of amendments, missing our target as usual by several groups of amendments because so many people want to speak. I spoke in the debate on amendment 103, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/111122-0002.htm#11112299000096…
There has been much discussion, not least at the Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, about judicial appointments and how to ensure a diverse judiciary. One of the less practical suggestions made to widen the pool from which judges may be selected is to institute part-time judging. This, said the Lord Chancellor, would enable more…
I was at a symposium this morning on the Parliament Act 1911. I spoke on the historical background to the Act. One of the points that I made, repeating what I said in my History of Parliament lecture, is that there was very little public interest in the issue of the second chamber as such during…
The calls for a review of drugs law are becoming more numerous and from a wide political spectrum, as this post on conservativehome by Bruce Anderson demonstrates. The more the momentum develops, the more difficult it becomes for government to continue adopting a Nelsonian stance on the issue. I have also previously commented on calls…
I’m about to go off to the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform. We are making good progress, and further fuel has been added to our fire this week, by a very useful note from the Lords Library (already referred to by Lord Norton) setting out all the evidence of the public’s opinion about reform. …
There has been focus on UNESCO recently. It admitted Palestine as a full member (although I am not sure whether Palestine has signed up to the constitution of the UNESCO, which is a condition of membership) and in consequence the United States has withdrawn its funding. In 1985 the United Kingdom withdrew from UNESCO for…
The House of Lords has not always met in its current chamber. Parliament went up in flames in 1834. A new building was designed, the work of Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, and that is the Palace we see today. In the interim, the Commons met in the chamber of the House of Lords, the walls being strong…
In these difficult times we are hearing a lot about the importance of getting value for money and the need for business to create value. We hear it from bankers, from Chancellors of the Exchequer, Prime Ministers and business people. But also in these difficult times we are hearing a lot more about…
