I would just add a couple of comments to those of Baroness Murphy on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. There have been two things about the debate of the past week or so that have irritated me immensely. The first point I make wearing my parliamentary hat and the second wearing my academic hat. First, from…
I attended a Hansard Society meeting this evening to discuss e-petitions. The Procedure Committee in the Commons recently published a report recommending that petitions should be permitted to be submitted electronically. It proposed that the constituency MP of the petitioner be asked to serve as a facilitator, that the petitions be posted on the parliamentary website for…
How many hereditary peers sit in Parliament? If you think the answer is 92 – the number prescribed by the House of Lords Act 1999 – you would be wrong. There are indeed 92 hereditary peers who sit in the Lords by virtue of the 1999 Act. However, there are other hereditary peers who also sit. …
Who was the last Prime Minister to spend most of his premiership on the benches in the House of Lords? It is a bit of a trick question. The answer is Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee (1945-51). The chamber of the House of Commons was destroyed by enemy bombing on 10 May 1941. The decision…
One of the best sources of information about Parliament is the Parliament website (www.parliament.uk). This now has a mass of useful information and is invaluable not only for learning about the institution but also about subjects debated or investigated by either House or their committees. Just browsing through the official report (Hansard) for each House,…
