Business of the House

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I rise on behalf of my colleagues on my Benches to say something very similar. The Leader has, of course, a double-hatted role, and has walked very well the line between being the leader of his party and the Leader of us as a House. I pay tribute to his good humour and hard work. Indeed, last Friday I found myself speaking to him. I had to admit that I was standing in the middle of a field in Perthshire; he was at his desk and said that he had a lot of papers before him. He works very hard, and has always been readily available from the smallest to the biggest of matters. It has been an enormous privilege to have worked with him. I think that the entire Cross Bench feels that he has acted as Leader of the House in a quite exemplary manner; we pay tribute to that.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief, having spoken already, but want to add my thanks. It is an honour and a privilege to be a Member of this House. When I first came in, someone said to me, “Oh, you’re going to the House of Lords? They don’t do party politics up there, do they?” I think the difference is that we have learned to disagree agreeably, which is important in the debates we have.

I thank the Leader. He is the third Leader of this House that I have worked with, and I have enjoyed working with him. His customary courtesy to this House has been highly regarded; as the Convenor says, he is the Leader of the House as well as leader of his party, and that can be a challenge at times, as we know. I think he has met that challenge.

On behalf of my party, the current Official Opposition, I also thank all the staff of the House for all the work they do—the cleaners, the caterers, the doorkeepers; I hesitate to leave anybody out. Without their support for the work we do, we could not do it as well as we want to do it.

I also thank all my colleagues, particularly my Chief Whip and Front Bench, but also my Back-Bench colleagues on this side of the House and across the House. We have a job of work to do, and I think we do it as diligently and as well as we can. We may not always get it right, but we always have the interests of the nation at heart. I thank the Leader for his courtesy in his current role.

Motion agreed.