Tag Archive for Constitution Committee

Strathclyde Review under scrutiny…

Lord Norton

At the end of last year, Lord Strathclyde, the former Leader of the House, of Lords, undertook a review, at the behest of the Prime Minister, of how the House deals with secondary legislation.  The review was prompted by the House not approving (though it did not reject) the tax credit regulations.  The review was published in December. …

How not to respond to a committee report

Lord Norton

On Tuesday, the House debated a report from the Constitution Committee of the Lords on The office of Lord Chancellor. It was a reasoned report, making a number of recommendations.  In the debate, peers commended various of the proposals advanced by the committee.  However, what was remarkable was the unanimity among backbench speakers as to…

Changing constitutional conventions

Lord Norton

The Constitution Committee of the House has today published its report on Constitutional implications of coalition government.  You can read the report here.  Among its recommendations are that as far as possible the convention of collective responsibility should continue to apply under a coalition government and that, where parties in a coalition cannot agree, there should…

White Paper and Draft Bill

Lord Norton

The Govermment’s White Paper and House of Lords Reform Draft Bill got a poor reception in both Houses.  The media have been underwhelmed by the Government’s proposals and decided that they did not really merit being treated as headline news.  This is hardly surprising given that the White Paper really added little to what had…

Public Bodies Bill

Lord Norton

Both Baroness Murphy and Lord Soley have commented on the Public Bodies Bill, which comes up for its Second Reading on Tuesday.  It is proving highly controversial and there is now a long speakers’ list for the debate.  The principal problem with the Bill is what is known as an ‘Henry VIII’ provision: that is,…