Lord Speaker’s Statement

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, welcome back. It is very good to see you all. As noble Lords will know, in the light of the judgment of the Supreme Court yesterday, Parliament is not prorogued. Accordingly, the Clerk of the Parliaments will delete the following items of business from the Minute of Proceedings of 9 September: Royal Commission, Royal Assent, Queen’s Speech and Prorogation. Instead, the Minute will record that the House adjourned at 1.40 am. I should also inform the House that signification of Royal Assent to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill will take place in due course. I take this opportunity to thank the staff of the House and all those who have worked against the clock to make the resumption of business possible.

I now return to our constitutional duty of scrutinising legislation and holding the Government to account. I call on the Government Chief Whip to make a business statement.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, before I turn to the business before us today, there is one thing I think we can all agree on, and that is to echo the comments of the Lord Speaker and thank all the staff who have returned at very short notice to get this Chamber up and running. We are very grateful to them. Some noble Lords will have noticed that some of the usual facilities are not available, but alternative arrangements have been made. I urge all noble Lords to be tolerant: services may not be fully staffed and refreshment outlets may be busier than usual.

For those noble Lords who may not have had time to study a copy of today’s list, our business today is as follows: there is a Private Notice Question on the extension of Article 50; an Oral Statement on Thomas Cook; an Urgent Question on the Attorney-General’s legal advice; and three more Oral Statements, on Brexit readiness, Iran and an update from the Prime Minister. For the Prime Minister’s Statement repeat, I have agreed with the usual channels that the time for Back-Bench questions will be increased from 20 minutes to 40 minutes. We then intend to finish the day’s business with a debate on the spending round. I cannot provide any certainty on timings as we are subject to the timing of Oral Statements in the other place. We will endeavour, though, to communicate any updates via the annunciator and the usual channels. Tomorrow, there will be four statutory instruments, ranging from tachographs to a gas tariff code. I will ensure that the Printed Paper Office has the details of these SIs so that they can be made available for noble Lords. Further usual channels conversations are required before business is confirmed for next week; however, it is my intention to issue a Forthcoming Business tomorrow afternoon, or Friday morning at the latest, providing the details of our business for next week.