Yesterday was the sixth day in committee on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. The Bill has not made rapid progress and yesterday consideration of the Bill was limited by the fact that there were two ministerial statements, an urgent question allowed in the Commons repeated as a statement, and a one-hour Question for…
The Government suffered another defeat in the House on Monday on an amendment to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. The amendment provides that the referendum on the Alternative Vote must be held before 31 October 2011. It was carried by 199 votes to 195. The voting was interesting: For the amendment: Labour 149, Crossbench…
There was a vote in the House on Wednesday on an amendment to the Identity Documents Bill moved by Lord Hunt of King’s Heath, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers who voted (178) outnumbered Labour peers (162). However, the amendment was carried by 220 votes to 188. The Government defeat…
There are two Bills before the House which give me cause for concern. The Public Bodies Bill gives excessive power to Ministers and is discussed in several posts below. The main problem is that Ministers want to take powers that enable them to wind up, merge, change staff or sell off QUANGOS without proper Parliamentary…
In an earlier post, Lord Tyler referred to the Deputy PM indicating his sympathy for the proposal for reducing the number of ministers in the event of the reduction in the number of MPs. This sympathy did not translate into Government action. On Monday, Charles Walker, the Conservative MP for Broxbourne, moved a new clause…
