Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I advise the House that one of our colleagues has been taken ill. I thank the usual channels and all Members for coming together in order to do the Statement an hour early. Our friend and colleague has now been moved to hospital, so the Lobbies are now open. Before we adjourned, we were about to vote on Amendment 14, so if that amendment is divided on, we can vote on it straight away and carry on with our business for the rest of the evening.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
I am sure the whole House will want to echo the comments just made about our colleague who has been taken ill. However, we have had just 20 minutes’ debate on a significant change that the Government are introducing. It will be introduced with no proper debate. We have had 11 questions—that is all we had time for—and there will be no proper discussion of the proposal to introduce a definition of anti-Muslim hostility. The Government really should allocate proper time to debate the introduction of such significant changes.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
I thank the noble Lord for those comments. Obviously, I am happy to chat to him outside the Chamber, but we have allocated the proper time of 40 minutes—20 for the Front Benches and 20 for the Back Benches—which is quite normal for these Statements.
We should now move on to the next business, but again, on behalf of the whole House, I thank our colleagues, the doorkeepers and all the other staff who assisted our friend and colleague, as well as the ambulance staff who dealt with our friend so professionally.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, before the Chief Whip sits down, he has been sorely missed in this Chamber today because the conduct of business has been all over the place, including on the Private Notice Question. While the Whip sitting here on the Bench exhorted people to be extremely brief and to ask questions, that was entirely disregarded by the Chamber.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
I am sorry to hear that. Maybe it is time for me to make another announcement to the House in the next few days. It is important that the Government are properly scrutinised, and that during Questions we ask questions that are short, sharp and to the point. What we do not want at any time is speeches and stuff. If need be, I will come back to the Chamber fairly shortly to remind colleagues of how the Companion should be operated, and that we all need to work to ensure that the Government are properly scrutinised. If we follow the Companion, we will not go far wrong.