Procedure and Privileges Committee
Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
As the noble Lord will know, my amendment is based on the idea that we should have change in this House. The House can cope with change—of course it can—but it needs to be less precipitate than this process. The general view on the referendum in Scotland, for example, is that, having had one, we should not have another for 10 or 20 years —once in a generation. I am not suggesting for a moment that this House operates on that sort of principle, but I am suggesting that there has been an impatience to get to this point. Why did we not have a debate today on these proposals and then vote? Why did we not have options?
The report was sent to us after the decision had been made to mandate the chairman of the committee to propose a Motion for change here. That is the wrong way to go about these things. It is mainly because of this that I am on my feet today; I would like to think that we could do things better. We can get agreement in this House for change—we will need some, because it is not functioning particularly well at the moment, if I may say so. Therefore, we ought to have an acknowledgement that the membership of the House is here to contribute to this change and not to be ridden roughshod over.
I fear that this proposal—coming so soon after the House decided that it would like to go back to the hours it had before Covid—is a mistake. I think it will lead to bad feeling in the House and make it a less pleasant, congenial and sociable place to work. Of course it is a place of business and earnest intent, but we are earnest because we are a collegiate body in our thinking. I think of all the assets of this House; it has expertise and people of talent, but it does things together. That is why I propose a different way of going about change, in this case and in future.
In the meantime, I back my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment, because I believe it is the only way in which we can bring the Procedure and Privileges Committee to realise that there is a way of going about these processes.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I have tabled a very small amendment to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor, purely to ask that we look at having normal voting time ending at 8 pm. I realise that there are all sorts of complications about votes that can be taken on quorums and other things, and that is why I have asked for this to be looked at by this committee.
I ask noble Lords to remember that many of us do not live in London, and if we are going to get home, we need to leave this place at a reasonable hour. The House—particularly the Leader of the House—has resolutely set her face against any form of overnight allowance for those of us who do not have properties in London, so we are faced with a bit of an opportunity: either we stay or we go. We do not seem to have any official pairing system, though I look at the Benches opposite and thank various noble Lords from the Labour Party who have agreed with me when I have said, “Shall we both go now?”
If we are going to get around this body being London dominated, I feel that we have to look at the democratic pursuit of giving a vote. Far too often, I have stayed in this House until 10 pm—