House of Lords: Behaviour and Courtesy

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, on the first part of the noble Lord’s question, I am impressed if today we have a worldwide audience. I hope that is the case. Nothing is more undignified and disrespectful to colleagues than when others shout so that those with the loudest voices get heard. I have to say, I do not think it happens that often. I am not really encouraged to set up a new committee. The House itself makes its views known and my noble friend Lord Kennedy, the Chief Whip, has been quite encouraging—let us say—of Members to abide by the conventions and behaviours of the House. I know that for some Members it does seem strange from time to time, but I urge all Members that if we all behave with dignity and respect for others, this should not be a problem.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, I am told I have a certain reputation in the context of this Question. I ask the Lord Privy Seal two things: first, to emphasise that Questions should not be read; and, secondly, to confirm that, for reasons unknown to myself, there is no such person as a “noble Minister”. There is a “noble Lord the Minister”, but the office is, for some curious reason, not deemed noble.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, Questions should not be read. They should be concise and questions rather than speeches. My noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark has pointed this out on many occasions and will continue to do so. On the noble Lord’s second point, many noble Lords—including me, on occasion —have felt chastised when they have slipped up and referred to someone as a “noble Minister”. He is absolutely right: it is the “noble Lord the Minister” or the “noble Baroness the Minister”. This makes the point: we have to abide by the rules and conventions of the House in order to conduct our business appropriately.

Business of the House

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Lord scoffs, but that is a reality, and this House benefits from the experience that noble Lords have in other walks of life. However, I would always be open to consider and discuss this in the usual channels and elsewhere.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

The Question is that this Motion be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Perhaps I may be allowed to speak. I just wanted to ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House if we could find time to discuss this.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I did not wish to make the point because I think that it sometimes appears as though I am reproving the House—which I am not; I am always open to the ear and will of the House—but we had a lengthy consultation, and indeed a debate and a vote, on this matter not so long ago. The House decided then not to change our sitting times.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for not allowing her to speak. I thought that we had come to the end of this piece of business.

Motion agreed.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con)]

My Lords, my amendment is grouped with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, whose persistence I admire concerning those who have suffered vaccine damage. My amendment is slightly different, but it is along the same lines in that it is about unintentional outcomes and redress for those who have suffered.

My amendment requires the Secretary of State to bring forward proposals for redress schemes to help those who have suffered avoidable harm linked to the three medical interventions that were examined in the report from the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, which I chaired. These are hormone pregnancy tests—the most common being Primodos—the epilepsy drug sodium valproate and pelvic mesh, which was used to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.

I will be brief, but I make no apology for bringing this before your Lordships’ House again because the case for these schemes is so compelling. These are people who, through no fault of their own, have suffered terribly and had their lives changed for the worse and in some cases completely ruined—all because of mistakes, errors of judgment, oversights and a refusal to listen across the healthcare system. In each case—Primodos, valproate and mesh—harm could and should have been avoided. If that does not underline the moral and ethical case for providing some help, then I really do not know what does.

I believe that my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues are genuinely sympathetic to the plight of these women and their children, but I sense that they are hesitant. I urge them to overcome some of this reluctance and act now. The suffering is immense, it is continuing even today, and very sadly people are dying before they receive the help they need. I remind my noble friend that these redress schemes are not the same as compensation. We are not talking about large sums of money. We are talking only about modest funds to help with the challenges of daily life: to pay for mobility aids, a respite break, travel to hospital. This is help that they do not and cannot access at the moment from the NHS, social services or elsewhere.

In Scotland, the Government there have acted. A scheme was set up to provide help to women suffering from mesh complications. It is modest: it was given a £1 million budget and women had to apply to it to be eligible. But it was welcomed, and it has helped. That is the kind of help I have in mind. Sums of that scale are barely noticeable in the context of the hundreds of billions we spend on health and social care, yet these small sums would mean so much to so many.

Are there concerns that this might set a precedent and that before we know it dozens of other groups of people who have suffered will all want the same? I do not believe so. That has not happened in Scotland. Thalidomide did not lead to an avalanche of other groups requiring help. We have existing schemes to help others who have been harmed. If the Government really believe that compensation is the better way for these people to get help, they are mistaken. The fact is that many have tried to obtain compensation through the courts. It is time-consuming, costly, stressful, adversarial and, worst of all, it simply has not worked.

The three groups that Amendment 180 is designed to help are small in number—not millions of people, not hundreds of thousands. I do not believe that an unwelcome precedent would be set. I do not believe that these schemes would cost the earth. The cost would be modest and can be contained and managed. I believe the benefits will outweigh the cost and that we have a moral and ethical duty to help these people. They have suffered for years and in some cases for decades. Surely the measure of a decent society is how well it looks after those who have suffered harm, especially where that harm could and should have been avoided.

I have met hundreds of people who have suffered; even today I get a lot of emails, phone calls and letters. We have heard from many more people. I am clear that help is both needed and deserved. People should not be made to wait any longer. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will agree.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I speak from these Benches to support both amendments in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, introduced his Amendment 164 on vaccine damage payments, explaining that the current law as set out in the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 is now over 40 years old. The amendment asks for a judge-led review on what parts of the Act need to be updated, especially the maximum payable as a result of vaccine damage.

The amendment proposes a small and focused review that will assist those who have been damaged by vaccines and will help the NHS, Government and Parliament ensure that the legislation is fit for purpose in the 21st century, especially for the families of those damaged by the Covid vaccine and of the very few who died. They may be an infinitesimally small percentage of those who have been vaccinated but their lives have been turned upside down because of doing the right thing.

Amendment 180 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is an important pillar of delivering the recommendations from her First Do No Harm review, which outlined routes to assist those who had been harmed by an avoidable harm as a result of using certain HPTs, sodium valproate or pelvic mesh. The victims of this avoidable harm are not to blame for it either, but are living out the consequences, including needing additional care for the rest of their lives. I know that the Government have been very supportive of the First Do No Harm review. I hope that they can be persuaded that now is the time to introduce schemes that will help these people. While I fear that there may not be movement on these two amendments today, I hope that the Minister can outline when there is likely to be progress on these two financially modest but essential areas that could right some long-term wrongs.

House of Lords: Size

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, I believe I have a reputation as a realist, and I will try to take such an approach this evening. First, I thank my noble friend Lord Cormack and my noble friend the Leader of the House—most particularly the latter, for giving us the time to debate this extremely important subject.

I have put down my pluses, or the things I am in favour of. I very much support the idea of reducing the size of the House but from experience I caution against going too low, not least because of the duties on the committee work of the House and the officers of the House. If we get too low, the committees would find themselves pushed for numbers. The appointment of a Select Committee is an extraordinarily good idea, which I warmly support, and I support the view, which I think was expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that the functions of the House should not change.

I will put down one or two markers for the Select Committee. I take the point that this is not the occasion to propose one’s views at length, but markers might be helpful. I certainly concur with 20% Cross-Bench representation. Interestingly, of course, that is almost exactly what it is at the moment, so there is no change there. I have to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock—I almost called him my noble friend—on the way to achieve the reduction in numbers. Although the experience of 1999 was hurtful to a number of people, it was extremely practical and worked well, and it is probably the prime way to reduce the numbers group by group. Once one has set a number, one can easily have a vote within each group. However, that raises the problem of “others”, and, as has been raised, the representation of factions that are not represented at the moment: UKIP; the SNP; the Greens, of which we have only one; and the Welsh national party, of which we have only one. Therefore that is a problem area.

I go along with what was said about the non-attendance criteria. That is an important point: those who do not pull their weight in the House should not stay. On retirement age, I disagree with the proposal of, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and other noble Lords. I am not in favour of wisdom and experience going out with the bath-water. That point of age would be covered by the elections within each group, and the group would make the decision whether a person was worth keeping on.

The Liberal Democrat overrepresentation has already been mentioned; that is clearly a major problem area. The hereditaries are also a problem area if the agreement made by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, is to be adhered to. The question for the Select Committee is whether this is the final reform of the House of Lords. I suggest that it is not, in which case that undertaking should be adhered to. On reduction, the inevitability of numbers increasing over the length of a Parliament could be dealt with by having further elections at the beginning of the next Parliament to bring the numbers back down again.

On my final point, I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, would steal my thunder. When R&R comes to fruition—I am taking a flyer at 2021—there will be a very large natural attrition of Members of this House. The Select Committee might like to hold on to that.

House of Lords: Oral Questions

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I really do disagree with the noble Lord’s description of the way in which we conduct ourselves during Oral Questions in so far as who gets to ask a supplementary question, because none of us chooses who gets to ask a supplementary question. It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that we all have an opportunity to ask a question. In this Session alone, more than 400 Members of this House have been able to ask a question, so quite a lot of Peers have that opportunity. It would be a very big and serious step for us to move from the position we have now, which is freedom for everybody, to one where we invest power in a single person.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, I am told that I have a certain reputation in this context. Will my noble friend confirm to me and the House that there is no such person as a “noble Archbishop” or a “noble Bishop”—they are a “most reverend Primate” or a “right reverend Prelate”? The epithet “learned” is restricted to those who have held senior posts as judges or Law Officers of the Crown—

[Noble Lords]

Too long!

[Lord Geddes]

Far too long.

And, indeed, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord West, who holds an award for extreme gallantry, that epithet is reserved entirely for Admirals of the Fleet, Field Marshals, Marshals of the Royal Air Force, Chiefs of the Defence Staff and holders of the Victoria Cross or the George Cross.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is absolutely right.

House of Lords: Question Time

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I certainly do not think that we should have jostling and bullying. Most of the time the House operates pretty well and noble Lords give way to other noble Lords and give them a chance. The House wants to hear from a wide range of people. However, I take the point. Sometimes we hear from some noble Lords more frequently than from others—they might all like to reflect on that. I had a thought that might help with that, which I would be happy to discuss with the Clerk of the Parliaments to see whether it is possible. If we could publish more frequently information on the frequency with which some Members ask questions, that might help us to draw the conclusion that we ought to share them out more widely.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that thus far the example set by the House on this Question is exemplary, in that not one word has been read?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree—and long may that continue.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume. I had hoped that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, would have leapt to her feet to do this, because we are now past the witching hour. I noticed that she did not do so; if she now wishes to do so I shall happily withdraw my Motion.

It is unusual for a Back-Bencher to move this Motion, and I do so only because the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is not doing so. Of course, the Chief Whip is responsible for ensuring that the rules of the House are adhered to, and the facts here are straightforward. The Companion states on page 40, paragraph 3.01:

“It is a firm convention that the House normally rises … by about 3 p.m. on Fridays”.

On 10 January the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said:

“I am indeed the guardian of the Companion”.—[Official Report, 10/1/14; col. 1737.]

Last week the guardian of the Companion did not put up much of a fight. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, the mover of the Bill, rightly said that the House had made good progress—and we have, dealing with 49 amendments. However, despite that good progress, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, insisted on overtime to nearly 6 pm, despite a promise from the Whip on the Bench that the House would rise by 5 pm to 5.30 pm. It is no good crying over spilt milk, and every dog is permitted one bite. However, I submit that what cannot be tolerated in this House is that the Companion—the sole way in which we regulate our proceedings—is ignored week after week in the interests of one party in the House.

The noble Baroness cited the precedent of the Bill on dignity in dying, when we did, indeed, go on until 6 pm. That was because we expected to finish the Bill that night by so doing. However, there is no prospect whatever of our completing this Bill by 5.30 pm this evening. Indeed, by my calculations, we could expect to finish at about two or three in the morning at the present rate of progress. On a Bill of constitutional importance of this magnitude, the idea that this House could be debating these issues at three on a Saturday morning cannot be contemplated.

I have a measure of sympathy with the Chief Whip. She sits on the Government Front Bench—I am glad to see her in her place—wearing three hats: as a Tory, a member of the Government and a defender of the rules governing our proceedings. However—and it pains me to say this—she is not in this case defending our rules. She is not acting as a member of the Government, as this is not a government Bill. She is acting wholly and solely as a partisan politician in what she perceives to be in the interests of her party. That cannot be permitted. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

The Question is that the House be resumed. Since this is a somewhat unusual situation, I should advise the Committee that this Question is debatable and, if necessary, divisible.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, clearly, I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said. My role as government Chief Whip is very clear. In scheduling Private Members’ Bills, it has always been the practice of all government Chief Whips in all parties to consult the sponsor of the relevant Bill in that scheduling. My role in the proceedings has been to facilitate the scrutiny of this Bill by this House. As ever, progress is in the hands of the House. We are a self-regulating House. Therefore, the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is, indeed, a legitimate Motion. As he says, it is unusual for a Back-Bencher to move it, but it is by no means not available to him. That is a double negative, but I mean that his action in moving the Motion is legitimate.

The noble Lord referred to the House’s use of time and predicts that it will progress so slowly that it will not rise, at this rate, until the early hours of the morning. I do not like to predict; I like to go on what is and what has been. That is what I sought to do last week when I gave advice to the House. Last week, we got through 14 groups of amendments in reasonable time. Several of those debates involved big, important subjects. Indeed, the Committee amended the referendum question itself. This week, there are 15 groups of amendments, after about another 14 were tabled between the two stages. They are largely on second-order matters —some are important—but we have made rather less progress.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Foreign Languages

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I will certainly take up that suggestion from the noble Baroness.

[Lord Geddes]

My Lords, I declare an interest as life president of Trinity College London, the worldwide examination body in English for speakers of other languages. Does my noble friend agree about the vital importance of foreign languages for British speakers and that it is equally important for UK Ltd that the reverse applies—that those who are not conversant with English learn to speak it better?

[Baroness Wilcox]

I am very impressed to hear that my noble friend is the head of such an august organisation and am only too delighted to know that he is there. I will support him in everything that he does in taking us forward, making sure that we get the growth that we need and that we can all communicate widely.

House of Lords: Behaviour in the Chamber

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I very much welcome the assertiveness of the House. However, there have been instances in the past of Peers intervening in an opening speech and then leaving the Chamber, not intending to speak themselves. This is something which I think we should all deprecate and is not part of the normal traditions of this House. I wish to make two comments about Question Time. I think that the behaviour in the House over recent months has been very good and I have had to intervene on very few occasions. I comprehensively disagree with what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, says: we have a very good system of understanding which side should speak next. The statistics demonstrate that at Question Time Labour Peers probably speak more than is their fair share.

[Lord Geddes]

Will my noble friend confirm to the House yet again that there is no such person as a noble Minister?

[Lord Strathclyde]

Yes, my Lords.

Procedure of the House (Proposal 1)

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham]

If I may resume, the first point that I was making was that the Leader of the House does not direct the House but offers advice. The second point is that the proposal before us today deals only with which party or group the Leader thinks should have the next turn; it does not deal with the question of two Peers rising from the same Benches.

The third point on this matter, and in my view the most crucial, is that the working party committee completely omitted what is very clear in both the Companion and Erskine May: that the Leader of the Opposition and the Convenor of the Crossbench Peers have a role to play in the order in the House. That is very important. In my view, in the circumstances when two people from the same party or two Cross-Benchers get up, it should be for the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the government party or the Convenor to advise the House which of the noble Lords he thinks the House should most like to hear. It is these failures to implement self-regulation over recent years that have got us into our present difficulty, and the sooner that we get back to proper self-regulation, the better. In my day, the Leaders of the opposition parties, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who is not here, and the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, were both very helpful to the House over matters of order.

Secondly, this proposal is unfair on the Lord Speaker. When we set up the office of Lord Speaker, the House had the benefit of three separate Select Committees manned by some of our most experienced parliamentarians, taking evidence from virtually all the other experienced parliamentarians who were not members of the Select Committee. Those reports were very strong in saying that our unique system of self-regulation needed to be preserved and those conclusions from such an authoritative source should not be overthrown from a report which was based on misconceptions and did not in any case consider many of the issues, nor as far as I can see took any evidence from those with the appropriate experience.

The recommendations that the role of the Leader should be taken over by the Lord Speaker poses this problem for self-regulation: will the advice of the Lord Speaker be capable of challenge as is the advice of the Leader? It is not a comfortable thought. It would be disastrous if it were and the end of self-regulation if it were not. It would produce a regime for this House which is more restrictive than even the House of Commons which deals with these matters by points of order. So we need to think very carefully.

Secondly, we are asking the Lord Speaker to assume responsibilities not just from the Leader but also from the Leader of the Opposition and Convenor that are not even written down or clearly defined. There are also some very practical matters to be considered. I just wonder whether the lonely Woolsack is the right place for a Lord Speaker with these roles. When I was the Leader of the House sitting here, it was the nods and the winks from the Leaders of the other parties, plus, if I may say so, the mutterings of the Clerk, which were very valuable in making sure that I did not make mistakes. Even if we pass this Motion, the Lord Speaker stuck up there will not be in a position to administer it in any fair way. Therefore, my advice to the House is not to pass this Motion, and, secondly, to go back to self-regulation as it should be, because I do not believe that there are many people in this House who properly understand what self-regulation is.

[Lord Geddes]

My Lords, I did not expect to be intervening quite this early in this debate. When we last discussed the report by my noble friend Lord Goodlad, I used the expression that this recommendation was a “slippery slope”. I do not move away from that consideration. I intervene with a decade of experience as a Deputy Speaker and very much in support of my noble friend Lord Wakeham. There are practical problems in this proposal. I will mention just one or two of them.

The first is that from that position it is impossible to see the original Cross Benches. You simply do not have a view. Earlier this year, my noble friend Lord Colwyn had a brilliant suggestion for resolving that: he would use his dentistry experience and get an elevated Woolsack. That had considerable appeal. More seriously, of course your Lordships will know that in another place—and I use that expression advisedly—the Speaker sits in an elevated position, so he or she is able to see the House. Believe me, from the Woolsack that is not possible.

The only other point I would like to mention is that if this proposal were agreed to, the Lord Speaker or the Deputy Speaker would be able to call groups. However, as my noble friend Lord Wakeham said, if three members of Labour Party—I am not picking on the Labour Party, but use it merely as an illustration—were to rise simultaneously, they would all have to sit down again as the Lord Speaker rose, so there would be confusion to start with. Secondly, if none of those three or only one gives way, there would be a confrontational position and the Lord Speaker would be almost obliged to start naming names. That is not in this recommendation and I would vote very strongly against it. This means that the Leader of that party or the Leader of the House would then have to nominate or suggest the Peer concerned. In that respect, we will have gone round in a circle and will be back to self-determination. I do not approve of this proposal and I will certainly vote against it if it comes to a vote.