Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a sad privilege to stand up and address the Chamber as we come towards the end of this tribute. I start by paying respect to the wonderful way in which the Lord Privy Seal opened the debate, followed by my noble friend Lady Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who set the tone for the whole debate. I do not want to repeat all the various comments that have been made about the service that the Queen has undertaken through her long reign; that can be read in Hansard at great length. I shall just highlight one or two things before making a general comment about why the Queen was and is held in such high regard.

The first thing is her acquaintance with the military, as we saw with her service during the war, but also her long commitment to the Armed Forces, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, will know as well as anybody. She always championed the veterans and our Armed Forces at great length through the whole of her life, which is of huge significance and speaks to the whole nation.

I also want to refer, as did the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, my noble friend Lord Kennedy and others, to the work she did with respect to Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, will know better than anybody about what she did and the work he did around that time in Belfast. It is easy to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, will know, “Wasn’t it fantastic that our Queen went to Ireland, went to Dublin and then went to Belfast?”, but just think, as the noble Lord, Lord Caine, will know, about the controversy that arose at the time and the hostility she received. The leadership and courage that she had to show to do that should be recognised by all of us.

That was an example of how, time and again, she did not always take the popular route; she sometimes took the route that was necessary for the greater good. Just think of her going to Dublin, not just wearing green and speaking in Gaelic, but visiting the memorial for those who were killed in the Easter 1916 rising. It is unbelievable that a British monarch should be welcomed to do that. Then she went to Belfast. The noble Lord, Lord Caine, was at the Lyric Theatre, I believe, when she shook the hand of Martin McGuinness. Unbelievable. She got hostility in Belfast for doing that, but she did it in the cause of peace and reconciliation and the belief that she had to use the authority of her office to move that on.

That is the nature of the person we had as our monarch, and that is why it is so important for us to give voice to all that in this tribute and in the tributes over the last two days here and in the other place. It is not repetition when people speak of their own experiences. It is not an unnecessary thing to do. It is an important statement of something that is important to our public life, both now and in the past.

I will say why I think the Queen has been so revered and why her loss is so shocking, but also something about what we should learn from her to inspire us for the future and what her legacy to us should be. The big thing about the Queen is the values she lived and stood for. People have heard me say this time and again, but some of those values, of family, community, patriotism, country and individual responsibility, are almost regarded as out of fashion and somehow irrelevant to the modern age, not something that we should all adhere to and teach our children but which we should leave out from our schools and that our country should not champion any more—that we should not say to the rest of the world, “This is what we are proud of about our country.” We had a monarch who symbolised all those values and principles. Because of that, she spoke to the inner core of the British people, the people of the Commonwealth and beyond. That is why people are so saddened and shocked, because they do not want to see those values die with her.

For me, and I think for our Parliament and us as representatives—whatever that means within a democracy—our legacy to her should be to say, “Ma’am, we’re going to take that forward and ensure we fight for it as well.” That is what the country is looking for in its leadership. Instead of division, people want harmony. That, Ma’am, should be our legacy and our epitaph to you.

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, spoke for us all when he pointed to the moral courage our late sovereign showed.

When I debated with myself about whether I would speak in these tributes to Her late Majesty the Queen, I found that I had an absolutely overwhelming desire to say thank you for her life of service, and her dedication to the welfare of the United Kingdom and to the well-being of its inhabitants. There have been many outstanding contributions. Given the hour, I will not fall into the habit of insisting on repeating all these sentiments myself, but I must say that I agree with what this House feels about the contribution the Queen made to our national life and destiny.

The Queen brought good cheer—one of her characteristics. I am old enough to have known another sovereign. I was 12 when the Queen ascended to the throne. Britain was a pretty grey place. Something lifted. First of all, we saw the wonderful dress she wore, which was made with an incalculable number of pearls that came from various parts of what was then still the empire to be sewn into it. From this rather grey world we began to see something that was rather lovely and cheery. She was very beautiful. It was a great occasion. My family, like many in the United Kingdom, bought its first television set to watch the proceedings. So she started with a tremendous show, which I think greatly improved the morale and general happiness of our society.

The other thing I want to say about the way she behaved over all these years is that she was a tremendous force for inclusion in our society. Little people mattered to her—that was widely and instinctively understood and much appreciated by the general public. Very ordinary people have been saying these very complimentary things about her, and are spontaneously repaying the compliment by covering the boundaries of Buckingham Palace, Balmoral and the grass of Green Park with a carpet of flowers. I do not know whether noble Lords have seen them on the television; it is extraordinary.

We also witnessed something else. Not only did people see that the Queen represented us collectively, which they much appreciated, but many in this society felt they had an individual connection with her. They did not know her in the conventional sense, but she connected with us, and put a lot of effort into doing so. One should not imagine that this is somehow a gift handed to you—you have to work at it. It is hard work to make connections, but she most certainly did. That is one of the reasons why she was also so effective in the Commonwealth. People understood that she had thought about them and the situation, and here was the contribution she was willing to make.

Many Members of the House have recounted stories of personal encounters with the Queen. I am not among those who could claim to have known her, though I did meet her. On one occasion, there was a private sitting at which I was present—a birthday party where we were both guests. It was held in the London aquarium. As she arrived, the Queen looked round at the colourful goldfish in the tanks near the entrance. “I haven’t been here before”, she said. I happened to be standing just near her, and said “Your Majesty, when you get much further into this place, you will find that it contains a lot of sharks.” “Oh”, she said, “How like real life”.

I will make just one more point. Like most Members of the House, I watched His Majesty the King speak last night, when he made his own public tribute to his mother and talked to us about his future role. He made some very perceptive comments and important commitments on how he would seek to act. Some Members have said they think the Queen will be a hard act to follow. I am sure that that is right, but I thought that our new monarch had all the empathy that will be needed for him to be an extraordinary, commanding presence in the country and that he will communicate with us as effectively as his mother. God save the King.

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, what else is there to say after so many heartfelt, excellent and eloquent tributes both in this Chamber and beyond? Upon her passing, as ever in life, our late Queen brings out the best in us, inspiring us to be our better selves and to fulfil our duty, despite the turbulence around us. Her departure has stopped time, as we mark the end of an era, and united the world as leaders around it pay their respects, whether friend or foe. We will never see anyone like her again and we will miss her desperately.

Many have remarked on how important her faith was in all she did. As a follower of Jesus, I would go further and say she was a steadfast believer, not just because she would go to services, or because she was the head of our established Church, but because she genuinely believed in Christ, in the promise of eternal life for those who put their hope in Him and in His Lordship—Christ at whose feet it has been said she longed to cast her crown when they finally met. Because He died for her and for us, laying down His life as a servant king for us, forgiving us our sins, so too she felt she could devote her life to serving us as a servant Queen, bringing reconciliation where it was needed.

Our late Queen knew that, even if she might not be able to change things directly, constrained by the constitution and a watching media, God could intervene divinely, just as He did for one of her ancestors, Queen Victoria. Their and their heirs’ prayers have protected these isles—I believe miraculously—from invasion, collapse and whatever crises we have faced. We would do well to follow their example, crying out to our Lord to heal this land and meet us in our time of need.

EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I contribute to this debate as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, which reported on EU membership and UK science. I declare an interest as a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. I take this opportunity to thank our chairman, the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, for the excellence of his chairmanship, and also thank our committee clerk and advisers for the support that they gave us, which was of the highest quality. As our chairman said, it was not our aim to pronounce on the merits of UK membership from the point of view of UK science—rather, our approach was forensic. Our chairman has laid out our conclusions clearly and cogently, and I am not going to repeat what he has said, or repeat the points of other members of the committee. Instead, I shall try to make a few additional and separate points.

There are many contributors to the debate today and I shall be brief. Before I make a few points that struck me in the course of the committee’s work, I want to say how dismayed and alarmed I am by the way in which the pied pipers of leave are attempting to lead the people of this country into a dark mountain from which we can only emerge reduced and poorer. Pace the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, I see no exhilarating distance in front of us, on that route.

My noble friend Lord Howell made some very pertinent points about how the world is going, and he is quite right about that. He is also quite right to suggest that the change and reform agenda in Europe has a long way to go. But the conclusion that I draw is that we are more likely to see that come about in a form that suits us, and sooner, if we are active from inside the political heart of Europe.

I turn to our report. Hardly surprisingly, we found that the overall picture was not one of unmitigated benefit. As our chairman has said, the biggest complaint was about regulation—not the principle of regulatory harmonisation, which was accepted as being necessary and valuable, but some of the EU regulatory regimes, which have been politically driven, with highly negative results for important things such as genomic science and clinical trials. However, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we do not contribute sometimes to those outcomes—we do. A credible mechanism for the injection of scientific advice into policy-making in the Commission has at last come about, and that will be a very salutary safeguard, provided that it works well; we have yet to see how effective the scientific advice will be. The European Union is ahead of many member states in doing this—not the UK but many others—and I hope that it will contribute to preventing lobby-driven law-making, particularly in the European Parliament.

The overwhelming weight of witness opinion before us was in support of the value of EU membership to UK science. This positive verdict has, in the last few days, been strongly endorsed by British Nobel Prizewinners. First, the funding coming from EU sources was very highly valued. As other noble Lords have commented, the UK does disproportionately well in getting hold of EU money, and I might add that engineering does particularly well. This country has a history of neglecting engineering—to our cost, I might say—and nearly half the increase in engineering funding has come recently from EU sources. EU funding might not be so important were the UK to put the level of funding into science that our comparators spend. Most countries are increasing their spending on scientific research, but we in the UK are cutting back. We consistently underfund by relevant international standards, so EU money helps to make up a gap that would otherwise be bigger. I would like to see those trends reversed but, in the present state of affairs, it matters to us a great deal that EU money is forthcoming. I do not believe that, were the UK to decide to leave the EU, that gap would be made up by national funding, let alone exceeded. No one before the committee gave any suggestion that EU scientific programmes were in any way misdirected. On the contrary, the general feeling was that they were extremely relevant to the future of big science.

Secondly, the enthusiasm for the scientific network built up and the work done in UK universities as the result of the free flow of scientists from other European countries was very marked. Enriching was the word used. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that the base is the Erasmus programme and students coming to this country for first degrees then stay and do advanced work. Twenty-eight per cent of academic staff in UK universities are non-UK nationals, of whom 16% come from other EU countries, often bringing salary funding with them, which helps our universities, and 60% of the UK’s internationally co-authored papers are with EU partners. That is not an insignificant intellectual and other contribution. Given the high reputation of UK science, it cannot be argued that EU quantity is at the expense of British quality. Something very precious to science in the UK has been built up which has helped to consolidate the leadership we hold. Collaboration is the key to that. I should hate to see it undermined by a sapping of the flow of students and researchers coming from our European neighbours.

Thirdly, our weakness in translational activity and the links between science and business which are so important to innovation showed up in the European story. British business did not respond to the call for evidence and, as our chairman has said, while SMEs evidently value European funding and apply for it, larger British companies do not. Our witness from Siemens commented on this and clearly thought the UK was missing a trick. He is right, so it is doubly important that the Government, in their forthcoming extensive restructuring of UK publicly-funded research and innovation do not mess up the role of Innovate UK. That, however, is a debate for another day.

Queen's Speech

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, this debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech has been extremely wide ranging and very stimulating. We do credit to ourselves in the quality and imagination that has been injected into a great deal of the interventions, and there have been 49 speakers. Before I do anything else, I join noble Lords in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, to our House and congratulate him on his excellent speech.

It is very gratifying that the work of the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Communities and Local Government should attract such a long list of speakers, but it makes for a difficult task in winding up. We will undoubtedly return to all these topics in due course, which will give the Government an opportunity for fuller replies, so I hope that I may be forgiven if I do not tonight cover all the points that have been raised. I will endeavour to write on any substantive points that I miss.

Before I go to the substance, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution not only of those who took part in today's discussion but of the Ministers in the previous Government who were involved in the affairs that we have discussed today, particularly the noble Lords, Lord West, Lord Hunt and Lord Bach. While in some areas of policy there will be changes of direction under this Government, in others it is clear that we shall be building on what our predecessors have done.

This Government have a strap line: freedom, fairness and responsibility. These themes run through the Government’s programme, and they have run through today’s debate with a strong focus on the citizen: the individual’s relationship with the state, the individual’s right to participate actively in the running of the society to which he belongs and the importance of people taking time and trouble to exercise those rights responsibly.

Before I turn to some of the more detailed points, I want to underline what my noble friend Lord McNally said when he opened this debate: this Government will be steadfast in their defence of civil liberties, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, that anybody who knows me knows that I am entirely comfortable sitting next door to my noble friend Lord McNally.

Protecting the public and safeguarding our liberties are not mutually exclusive. They are not a zero-sum game; the more of one, the less of the other. Indeed, one might ask: what is the point of security in a society if it is not free, if not to preserve the values that we believe in and stand for? We will not compromise our national security in the face of a serious and continuing threat. As the noble Lord, Lord Bach, rightly said, that is my particular responsibility. For me, the first duty of government is to protect a free society.

In this debate, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have been brigaded together. Hearing the remarks made by some noble Lords, I hope that they do not think that with this brigading, somehow the Home Office will not always act proportionately. I stress that it is very important that the Home Office, in carrying out the duties that are particular to it, does so always with proportion. We should not be solely in the business of protecting the state, since in the 21st century security, and national security, are about maintaining the prosperity and way of life of society as a whole. We come back to the theme that has run through our debate; the centrality of the citizen.

Before I go into more detail about the Home Office and the Government’s programme, I will address the questions raised by noble Lords about constitutional and electoral reform. I am in danger of wading into deep water here. It is clear that the prospect of change raises mixed emotions in this House, and a considerable degree of excitement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said that a great opportunity for reform was being missed. Perhaps I might ask what the previous Government were doing for the past 13 years. Their enthusiasm for electoral reform was reserved for very near the election.

I turn to the substance of the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and many other noble Lords, asked about legislation on AV and the referendum. He inquired about the timetable for both. The referendum is a priority for this Government and we plan to hold the poll as soon as possible. The precise timing will depend on the passage of the Bill through the two Houses. More information on timing will come with the introduction of the Bill in another place. The question to be put will be submitted to the Electoral Commission for comment on its intelligibility, to ensure that we get a good question. The choice will be between the current system and AV. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also asked about threshold and turnout, and a number of other more detailed questions. I am afraid that I cannot give him more information at present.

A number of questions were also asked about electoral issues that largely affect the other place. I do not propose to go into detail on those. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and others, suggested that speed in redrawing electoral boundaries might come at the expense of consultation. I entirely agree that consultation is important. However, many people might consider that the present system has created a situation in which the boundaries are out of date before they are ever used, as in the case of the last election, and that we need to improve the speed at which these things are done. We do not accept the thesis that larger constituencies lead to less accountability—there is not going to be such a radical change—nor that more equal-sized constituencies are a bad idea. We will allow small variations to accommodate local conditions.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and many other noble Lords also raised the issue of reform of your Lordships’ House. Indeed, I suppose that if there were a single issue on which we focused most, not surprisingly it was that. As the noble Lord noted, a committee is being set up but not, I think, on this occasion located in the long grass. Its composition is currently under consideration and the aim is that the committee should make recommendations by the end of the year.

My noble friend Lord McNally has already given some indications of the Government’s broad direction of march on some of the important issues. The committee will look at the detail of these issues and such matters as the choice of the electoral system, the proportion of Members to be elected and the transitional arrangements, including some of the ones that we have discussed, such as grandfathering. These will also be matters for the committee, as indeed will the issue raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester concerning the future position of Bishops in our House.

We on these Benches are well aware of the strength of feeling in this House, including that we should have some say in our own fate. I share it. The noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Armstrong, made characteristically to-the-point speeches about the issues involved, including the question of powers. Ensuring that views expressed in this House are heard properly and are thoroughly considered is important. The Leader of the House has already made clear the possibility of timely discussion at a formative stage and I am sure that we shall want to enable that to happen.

I think that on the Benches opposite there is great excitement—perhaps I may put it that way—about the possible effect of what they see as being new appointments to this House. At the moment, there are no announcements so far as I know, only rumours. If there are new creations, I doubt that they will be only on one side of the House; I am sure that they will be on the other side, too.

There has been a certain amount of questioning about Parliaments being fixed for a term of five years. When I travelled abroad—and I used to do a great deal of that—I found that most countries found it pretty odd that we did not have a fixed term. We are, in our present state, extremely unusual. Many in this country have long thought that it would be a good thing to move to fixed-term Parliaments. A Parliament of five years does not seem to be outside the British tradition, so I feel that it is a perfectly reasonable figure on which to fix.

The question of 55 per cent is a sensitive issue. There were a number of very thoughtful contributions from noble Lords about the 55 per cent threshold, as well as the expression of some anxiety and, indeed, criticism. However, there is no hidden agenda. Such provisions are normal in the context of fixed Parliaments. If you have a fixed Parliament system, you tend to have a provision of this kind, particularly in countries where there are coalitions. Germany, for example, is no exception. Therefore, if we are botching this idea—to use the phrase of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—I suspect that so are many other countries.

The first point that I want to emphasise is that the Government’s proposals on the 55 per cent vote for Dissolution do not affect the conventions relating to a confidence vote in the other place. A Government who lose a confidence Motion, even by a single vote, will have to resign. This is not about stopping Parliament dismissing a Government; it is about stopping a Government being able to dismiss Parliament. This is in the context of fixed terms.

Detailed consideration was also given to the matter in a debate in the other place on Tuesday night. It will receive further detailed scrutiny, first, when the Government publish a Motion in the other place stating the date of the next election and, secondly, when a Bill is introduced. The crucial thing is that there is nothing unusual about requiring a percentage of a Chamber to vote for Dissolution. As we know, in Scotland the figure is two-thirds and in other countries there are different percentages. The 55 per cent was the threshold that the Government thought right for the UK. I have no doubt that further contributions will be made by noble Lords on that subject.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said that it was implicit in the coalition’s proposal that the 55 per cent could be used by the Government for Dissolution only if there was a vote of no confidence prior to that. Is that correct?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I shall not venture into that territory because I do not think that I know the answer to that question. Clearly this is precisely the kind of issue that needs clarification. I entirely accept that.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

It seems to me that on Tuesday night David Heath was introducing a new institution into the situation, which was the period of 25, 30 or 35 days during which there would either be a failure to put together a Government, in which case there would be sudden death, or the whole matter would be prolonged. Was he speaking ex cathedra or not?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am certainly beyond my area of knowledge. These are matters of detail and we ought to allow—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Excuse me, they are. They are the details that surround the general principle and we need to formulate them. The House is absolutely right to wish to know these answers and we will bring them forward as soon as we can.

I want to refer to two other points of constitutional significance that were raised during the debate. The first concerned Scotland. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, who served on the Calman commission, asked about the timing of a Bill to implement the commission’s recommendations. It is hoped that a Bill will be introduced in the autumn. Obviously, given its importance both Houses will want to give it careful consideration and it would be premature at this stage to anticipate when it will reach the statute book. However, the noble and learned Lord can be reassured that we want the Bill to make steady progress through Parliament. That is one of the things that we want to get through. I also confirm that on this issue the respect agenda goes across the political spectrum. Already this week, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, met the leader of Labour MSPs, at Mr Iain Gray’s request, so the matter is under way.

My second point is the question of the Bill of Rights, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. He asked whether the Bill would be UK-wide. The remit of the commission, which will consider many of the issues that he raised, is UK-wide but we will ensure—another point that he underlined—that the commitments made in the Good Friday agreement are respected.

I shall now turn to the Home Office side of the Government’s programme. We have set out a clear shift in the Government’s approach to a number of areas, such as ID cards. Your Lordships’ House will not be surprised by that. As an indication of our determination to get on with this part of the agenda, legislation has already been introduced in the other place. Our commitment to civil liberties is nowhere more apparent than in the decision to wish to do this—to abolish not just identity cards but the national identity register, which would have contained up to 50 items of personal information for each individual and to which the cards would have been connected. We want to remove the notion that the state has the right or the need to collect and amass huge volumes of personal data of people and lodge them all in one place. I must also say that much can be done. A noble Lord said that we still have too much legislation; that is a sentiment with which I personally sympathise. In my view, much can be done without legislation.

I turn for a moment to counterterrorism policy, where that is certainly the case. We will maintain the framework of the CONTEST strategy, which we have always supported as conceptually sound—I pay tribute to those who formulated and pioneered it. It is a model that many other countries have looked to and imitated. It has proved its worth and we will build on it. As noble Lords may also be aware, we are reviewing one part of it: the operation of Prevent, which is not at present attaining its objective of preventing people becoming terrorists.

We believe that effective intervention with individuals needs to occur upstream of the prevention of violence and that that policy should be about more than the enforcement of the boundary between lawful and unlawful activity. We see cohesion as a separate issue.

We will also review control orders. Consistent with the security situation, our aim is to cease to have resort to them. They have big implications, so I hope that the House will allow us time to achieve that. We have also undertaken to consider detention before charge. That will come up quite soon. We will also look at the operation of stop-and-search powers in relation to terrorism. An especially difficult area is our ability to deport foreign nationals whose presence is not conducive to the public good. We will pursue that issue, despite the difficulty of getting assurances abroad.

Finally, on the more general security front, as the House knows, we have instituted the operation of the National Security Council. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, we want in certain areas to roll back the powers of the state, and reduce the weight of government on our citizens and the surveilling of law-abiding people. We will adopt the protections of the Scottish model of the DNA database, which, we believe, will provide us with the necessary instruments for good policing and crime detection. We will regulate with due note for balance CCTV cameras and we will restore rights to non-violent protest and historic freedoms such as the right to trial by jury.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I ask a question about the operation of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is an independent committee of Parliament. Is the noble Baroness prepared to initiate work in her department on whether that could now be transformed into a full committee of both Houses?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government intend to give the committee greater status, more powers and greater separation from the Executive. Exactly how that is to be done is being considered at the moment, but I think that a proposal will come forward shortly. We are certainly moving in the direction that the noble Lord wants.

The time has come to wind up. We will do considerable work in the area of police reform. The election of an individual to whom the police will report and be accountable will not manage or interfere with operational independence. There will be checks and balances accompanying such an individual. Perhaps I can go into more detail in due course; we will consult with the necessary bodies which have an interest.

Many other points were raised by noble Lords, including matters concerning the forthcoming legislation from the Department for Communities and Local Government, where we will push forward our agenda of localism. I will write to noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on the various points that they raised.

In conclusion, I hope very much that the reforms that we have outlined in the Government’s legislative programme for this first Session will secure the ambition, which I am sure is shared in this House, of Britain being not just a safe and secure society but a free one. I commend the programme to your Lordships.

Debate adjourned until Wednesday next.