Arrangement of Business

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I thank the noble Lord for his point. I genuinely understand that; I am very conscious of that. I do not wish to cause any Member who is Jewish, or of any other faith, distress, inconvenience or problems in their faith by sitting beyond 3 pm. It is why I suggested that people could leave without hearing the debates, but that may not be acceptable to some colleagues. I am aware of that. I will discuss what else we can do, but I apologise. It is not my intention to cause noble Lords who are Jewish distress or problems with their faith.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I would like a point of clarification from the noble Lord. Before I express that, I think I speak for the whole House when I say that we understand what a difficult position the noble Lord finds himself in, and how fair he is trying to be to all sides in attempting to resolve this. I am certainly extremely grateful to him for the consistent fairness he has displayed to the House.

My point is about the procedures of the House. When we had that unusual Motion last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, a former Leader of the House, raised an important point at the end: does this affect precedent and future procedure on Private Members’ Bills? I do not think she got an adequate response.

While I appreciate the noble Lord’s flexibility in allowing noble Lords to leave before the end of the debate on a particular amendment—I completely endorse all the comments made by colleagues who live further away from the House about the troubles they would encounter—when we change the procedures of the House and more or less drive a coach and horses through the Companion, are we not expected to have a debate and make it clear that we are not setting precedent? Should we not be having a vote on that?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her very kind comments, which are much appreciated. We are a self-regulating House. We have a Companion; we do not have fixed rules, but we have conventions, and we all try to work around those. That enables the House to work in the unique way it does. In some ways it is not like the House of Commons. I know colleagues who come from the House of Commons say how strange they find it when they first arrive here, but it does work.

Although the Companion advises us to rise at around 3 pm on Fridays, I checked and since 2021 we have sat beyond 3 pm on PMBs 24 times. We have already sat beyond 3 pm on the two days of Second Reading for this Bill. Although it is advisory and it is the convention, it is not a hard and fast rule. We do not have those sorts of hard and fast rules.

On the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, because we are self-regulating, I do not think it sets a precedent. At the end of the day, this House can decide what it wants. As I said earlier, if noble Lords want to adjourn at 3 pm and carry a Motion on it, then we will adjourn at 3 pm. However, I accept that this is a very important Bill and there are strongly held views on both sides. People want to give it scrutiny and we have to have the flexibility to ensure that is what happens.