Procedure and Privileges

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Harris of Haringey

Wednesday 16th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I was going to intervene on the question of the definition of “business attire”, and I look forward to the Senior Deputy Speaker elucidating that in a moment. Since we are talking about speeding up the business of the House, I have to say that the suggestion that, to reduce the time-wasting that sometimes occurs here, we should reduce the time limit from 10 minutes to eight minutes hardly seems to be a game-changer. In fact, if we are not able to make the critical point succinctly at that stage of the consideration of a Bill, why we are not considering reducing the limit to three or four minutes?

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make two brief points. One is to support the comment made by my noble friend George Foulkes about supplementary questions. Our Chief Whip does a great job in identifying which party should come next, but he cannot choose between Members of one party. We still have a situation of relative chaos. I know at least one Member of the Conservative Party who point-blank said to me that he will not intervene in Question Time because he does not like the chaos that there is. My second point is a minor one. One of the paragraphs talks about not repeating lists of named people who have helped. I thought there was a tradition that we respect maiden speakers but that the only person who should thank the maiden speaker is the person speaking afterwards—not every other speaker in the debate, which seems to be the pattern at the moment.