My first posting on “Lords of the blog” comes a day after an uninvited visitor was sighted in the red carpeted corridors of the Lords. A fox “broke in” to the House somewhere near the Speaker’s apartments and pest control had to be called in. This happens occasionally. I think that a fox was once…
As my fellow bloggers have said, returning to parliament felt different this time. The sheer numbers of new boys and girls, with more on the way, makes the place feel claustrophobically crowded at question time. I failed to arrive before prayers on tuesday and couldn’t get a seat anywhere. Eventually I squeezed on the back…
Lord McNally, the Justice Minister, yesterday repeated the statement – made in the Commons by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg – on constitutional reform. Rather like Nick Clegg, he attracted some critical questions. This is hardly surprising given the scope of what is proposed. There will be one Bill covering the equalisation of constituency boundaries,…
Yesterday’s debate on a motion to take note of the case for reform of the House of Lords occupied almost nine hours with sixty-seven speakers. Many speakers, myself included, distinguished between reform and destruction. Getting rid of the House of Lords is not reform of the House. Most of us who spoke favour reform in order to strengthen the…
Lord Lucas had a question down yesterday on the committee that has been established to draft a Bill for an elected second chamber. The committee will comprise a mix of ministers and Opposition figures, though – unlike the committee created by Jack Straw – with no one from the cross benches. There was an interesting…
