Shipping: Passenger Safety

Debate between Lord Higgins and Baroness Kramer

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, my understanding is that this exemption is for up to five miles and therefore would not apply in most of the circumstances that the noble Lord has just described. It is for small craft of less than 24 metres which have to be travelling in daylight and in summer only. They are required to have sufficient life rafts for all passengers but additional safety can be provided by buoyancy apparatus.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, are life rafts generally not preferable to life rings, particularly if the water is cold? Is the saving in this negotiation really significant? Presumably all existing vessels already have the current requirement rather than the reduced one.

Procedure of the House (Proposal 5)

Debate between Lord Higgins and Baroness Kramer

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, I understand very well the case against reading out extremely long Statements. None the less, I believe that the repetition of Statements in this House is very important because very often they get much more detailed expert scrutiny than in the other place.

As far as television is concerned, it is rather regrettable. As far as I can establish they televise the original Statement in the Commons but virtually never show the Statement being repeated in this House. That is perhaps a point which ought to be taken on board.

Having said that, I think that there is also an important matter of timing—if it is an extremely long Statement, which is then going to be in the Printed Paper Office, one is going to need some time to read and digest it before the Statement is then bounced suddenly into this Chamber. At the very least, while one would not necessarily move a manuscript amendment, those dealing with this discretionary practice should certainly allow at least an hour and a half—and I would have thought two hours—between the Statement being available in the Printed Paper Office and it being taken on the Floor of the House.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, surely the most important work we do when a Statement is put before this House is to question it and scrutinise it. Making sure there is adequate time for that and that a full range of views is aired is absolutely central to our responsibility.

I have perhaps a personal prejudice. I find that speeches that are read out are extremely difficult to listen to and a second-hand speech is, frankly, even harder to listen to because no one can put any life into it. I am not sure that listening to the speech gets me a lot further in terms of understanding. Perhaps that also applies to other noble Lords in this House. If we need a time delay to make sure that everyone has had an opportunity to actually do the reading, surely that is something that can be organised. It seems to me that the precious time we have should be spent on scrutiny rather than on a second-hand regurgitation of a speech that is sitting on paper in front of us.