Business of the House

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Rooker

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am surprised that the noble Countess did not intervene, given the length of that intervention from the noble Lord. He will recall that the Bill that he referred to was agreed by the usual channels, which is the normal way in which we proceed. I realise that because I was in the House of Commons I may have got used to its procedures, but I have been used to Bills being presented with the name of the sponsor. There is no sponsor on this Bill. The noble Baroness said that it was being presented for its First Reading, but the Bill appears to be an orphan. Who is the sponsor for this Bill?

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I am.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

That is very alarming, because I thought that the noble Lord was a very good House of Commons man. When the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that in the House of Commons there was no functioning Executive, that is because, according to Sir Oliver Letwin and some of his friends in the other place, they are now the Executive. His remarks in the Commons were extraordinary. He said that,

“when this House comes to legislate, as I hope it will and fear it must, it will be, so to speak, a Cabinet. We will be making real-life decisions about what happens to our fellow countrymen—not just legislating in the hope that many years later, subject to further jots and tittles, the law, as administered by the system of justice, will work better. We will be making a decision about the future of this country. How can we possibly make those decisions unless we are properly informed? The process of which we are now at the start will require the fundamental realignment of the relationship between the civil service, Government and Parliament. There is no way we can continue to act as though we were merely a body to which the Government were accountable; for a period, for this purpose, we will have to take on the government of our country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/2/19; col. 1110.]

This is what is being said at the other end of this building.