Defence Equipment and Support

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Elton

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

I am sorry, the noble Lord, Lord Bach. It is a mistake I have made before. Bad map-reading; I apologise.

[Lord Bach]

The noble Lord should not insult my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, but he is not the first to do so.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, if I can start again, can my noble friend tell us whether in any debate that we have he will be prepared to answer questions about how research and development will be continued under the new organisation? It is very important that the budgetary and technical skills of the department, the military and the commercial suppliers are co-ordinated. How is that going to be managed and by whom?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Elton

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

There is a great difference between the traditional arrangements of the Chief Whips of both parties in ensuring that they have a sufficient number of people here to keep the House or if necessary win a Division, and a formal arrangement to get a series of people to speak to make sure that the debate goes on longer than it otherwise would. I confess that I am myself speaking away from the amendment.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords—

[Lord Elton]

May I just finish? I am happy to give way when I have finished. I confess that I am myself departing from good order by not addressing the amendment, which is what I hope the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is about to do.

[Lord Bach]

I want to address the point that the noble Lord felt obliged to make. The rules of the game changed slightly, did they not, when the Government announced that they would have an all-night sitting on this Bill? They said that would do everything they could to ram the Bill through as quickly as they could. Once they had decided to do that, the rules changed. Why was it not good sense to have a document that would help this side, with our limited power, to set out some sort of rota for matters that need to be debated? The rules have changed and they have changed only because of the way that the Government have behaved.

[Lord Elton]

With respect, the previous Government had all-night sittings as well and we did not change the rules.