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…
I had a quick look at the statistics for the blog early this morning. By that stage, as is usual, it had only attracted a small number of visitors. By chance, I looked again at lunchtime and the line on the graph had suddenly shot up, way beyond the normal daily traffic. I kept checking –…
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. …
Lord Tyler’s post touches upon a question variously raised in class discussions on the Lords: why do members need to have expertise in a particular field when you can call experts to give evidence? There are several fairly straightforward reasons. They apply with particular force to committee work but are relevant also to debate in the chamber.…
Baroness Murphy’s post reminds me of a question frequently raised in discussions about the Lords. Can peers vote in parliamentary elections? The answer is no. Or rather, members of the House of Lords cannot vote in parliamentary elections. Prior to 1999 it was held in common law that it was the status of being a…
