Procedure of the House

Debate between Lord Hill of Oareford and Lord Crickhowell

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crickhowell]

My Lords, can my noble friend go a little further on this very point? At the moment he got to it, I was reading the sentence in his letter which said that,

“there are reforms we could make—for instance, to ensure that debates drawn by ballot command sufficient interest in the House”.

He has now said that this is a matter we can discuss in the committee. We need a little more clarification about what he has in mind on that point, as it really is central to the argument put to us by the noble Lord, Lord Butler.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As the Chairman of Committees made clear earlier, on both proposals some of the precise details of how one can address these points will need to be worked through. For example, it would be possible to have criteria around the amount of support that there was for a particular balloted Motion, such as the number of people. It is also the case—this is why one would need to work this through and come back to the House before going nap on it, because that is also extremely important—that, as the Procedure Committee knows only too well, every suggestion that might address a particular problem can give rise to another set of problems. That is the kind of thing we would need to address.