Select Committees
Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
This Motion is debatable. We are talking about appointing the Leader of the House to various committees. If Members of the House wanted to pursue the issue that we were discussing earlier, we could discuss it now. This is a self-regulating House. It is unbelievable that one distinguished Member of the House—he is leaving now—should get up and move a Private Member’s Bill when it was clearly the wish of the House, indicated by my noble friend the Opposition Chief Whip, that we wanted to ask more questions and have this discussed. It is a pity that this House is being steamrollered in such a way.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, we are now on the next business. I suggest we get on with it and rely on my noble friend the Leader of the House to take the message that we have given her to the Prime Minister and to ask him to read Hansard.
Procedure Committee
Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments in relation to the report. However, as we are discussing procedure, I should say that I find it ridiculous that comment and questions on the Ukraine Statement were restricted to 20 minutes. I know that has been extended from 10 minutes but in the other place such discussion is unrestricted. My noble friend Lady Liddell and a number of other noble Lords tried to get in and some of us did not even bother to try as we knew that discussion was limited to only 20 minutes and that a lot of noble Lords wanted to comment. However, we are going to finish early again tonight and then we are going away for three weeks. This is a matter of great importance and it is a great shame that we will not have another opportunity to comment on it at this point. I hope that the Chairman of Committees will have another—
Lord Elton (Con)
I hope the noble Lord will permit me to point out that he is not speaking to the Motion on the Order Paper. There is a lot of other pressing business that a lot of us want to get on with.
House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Elton and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Elton
My Lords, I am a friend to this Bill. I rise briefly to say only that I am also a friend to the noble Lord, Lord Steel. However, I deeply regret the precedent that we are setting by allowing your Lordships to come through the Front Door of the House to discover that the Order of Business is completely different from what it was the night before. I hope it is not something that will be done in the future.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I should point out that this has already been done when the government Chief Whip moved a Motion that the Welfare Reform Bill should be considered in Grand Committee without having consulted properly with the officials of the House to see whether that was practically possible. Unfortunately, that precedent has already been created.