Business of the House

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, before we move on to further business, I will refer to events yesterday. As noble Lords will be aware, the House sat until 4.20 am this morning. In my 26 years in your Lordships’ House, I cannot remember a Committee stage going so late. When the House has sat very late in recent times, it has been because of extreme and legitimate time pressures to get legislation on to the statute book.

I do not think that debating extremely important legislation in the middle of the night is sensible or acceptable in the absence of unavoidable time pressures. It is even less acceptable given that there was no agreement in advance, at least from these Benches and, I believe, the Cross Benches, on what sitting “late” meant. There was also clearly inadequate communication with the Lord Speaker’s office, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, the last Deputy Speaker to be rostered, found himself having to sit on the Woolsack for a continuous six hours.

I therefore have several questions for the Leader. Will he explain what urgency impelled him to believe it necessary for the House to sit so late? Does he believe that it is acceptable for staff to have to work until 4.20 am and then to expect the House to be fully operational by 11 am this morning? Does he accept that, as a self-regulating House, all groups in the House need to be informed in good time of the Government’s proposals for sitting and rising times? Can he give an assurance that the House will not sit into the early hours again except in cases of extreme urgency? Finally, will he agree to an early meeting with group leaders, the Convenor and Whips to discuss how we can avoid such circumstances as occurred last night being repeated during the lifetime of this Parliament?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, it is quite clear that, while some Members may be looking fresh-faced, bright and breezy this morning, others are looking a bit bleary-eyed. The difficulty with very late—or, I should say, early morning—sittings is that they exclude Members who have contributions to make who cannot remain as late.

This is a complex and controversial Bill that we are discussing, which needs examination and scrutiny. May I put forward three suggestions? First, we still have no impact assessment for the Bill. It has been through the Commons; it is now in Committee here and we have Report to come. It would be very helpful if the noble Baroness could commit that, before we get to Report, the impact assessment will be ready. The guidance on legislation says that it should be ready at the start of a Bill’s consideration; I do not think it unreasonable to ask to have the impact assessment before Report.

Secondly, I appreciate that the Minister is relatively new to his job, but I hope he will come to recognise that the House appreciates full answers, co-operation and collaboration. It is possible to disagree agreeably. That kind of co-operation across the House would help the passage of a Bill that is contentious.

Thirdly, it would be helpful to the entire House if all of us, when speaking—and to coin a phrase from the radio—avoided hesitation, repetition and deviation. My noble friend Lord Kennedy has been giving this a great deal of thought—he had until 4.30 am to do so. It would be helpful to have an early meeting of the usual channels to look for a way forward. We recognise that the Government want to get their legislation through and to proceed in a timely manner, but we also want to have the proper debate and discussion that we need.

I agree that, if we are sitting late, it is a courtesy to Parliament as a whole that the caterers, doorkeepers, Lord Speaker’s office and others involved be made aware of that—if there is any possibility of it happening again.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, it is slightly “three in the hoose” to say the same thing, but I think it is worth underlining these points. Yesterday’s events were, by any measure, extreme. They underline the absolute importance of communication, which came up short yesterday.

Our community is quite a big one. The community of Members is part of that, and we were under the impression that things would be wrapped up shortly after midnight. The deputies community—I am of course a deputy as well—had rostered for the hour after midnight, so it was caught short. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, is not in his place; I hope he is sleeping the sleep of heroes.

There are other members of the community as well; I have written down a few: our doorkeepers, our clerks, Hansard, the catering staff, the broadcast staff, and even a gentleman in the facilities department who is always here when we are sitting. Communication with these people is essential, and I think we can do better. I therefore ask the noble Baroness the Chief Whip—I suppose it is she who is going to respond—to confirm that she is committed to the principle of even-handed treatment of and strong communication with our community on these things, because then we can manage much better.