Channel Islands Measure

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham for giving us a bit of a history lesson in his introduction. That is always a useful addition. However, I hope that what he is proposing is rather more successful than No. 10’s apparent desire to move us to York—a matter that we discussed yesterday.

In the present case, unlike the No. 10 briefings, which so upset your Lordships, there has clearly been much discussion with and involvement of all relevant stakeholders, together with the thoughtful report of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Chartres, and his colleagues, and the thoughtful process that followed from that. I regret that any of your Lordships’ committees should not have access to any of the documents that they feel they need to do their work, but, as we have heard from the chair, the committee feels confident that it had sufficient information to make this recommendation, and I fully support this Measure. I hope that its implementation can now flow smoothly and quickly.

If the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham has some spare time, he might try also to persuade people that we should follow Section 4(2) of what is before us and put all our 16 year-olds on the electoral roll for Parliament and not simply for Church matters.