Arrangement of Business

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for trying to assist the House in making savings. He is a valued member of the Administration and Works Committee, a job that I know he takes very seriously since I serve on that committee with him. However, I regret to say that there will not be any savings as such because of the hard-working nature of this House. I should explain that in the calendar year 2011, whereas another place sat for 149 days, this House sat for 156 days, so we actually cost another week. I can give an assurance that in the forthcoming Session, 2012-13, we will sit overall for the same number of weeks as the House of Commons. It is just that we have a slightly different pattern of sitting days.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, reverting to the matters raised by my noble friends Lord Grocott and Lady Taylor, if I did not misunderstand the Chief Whip I think she said that there would be discussion between the usual channels after the publication of the report on Lords reform by the Joint Committee to consider when a debate might take place, but she did not say that we would have the opportunity to debate that report before the conclusion of this Session. Is it not very important that this House should be able to express its views on the report of the Joint Committee before the Government finalise the content of the Queen’s Speech?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I have said two things which I am happy to clarify again. The first is that the report has not even been concluded, let alone published, and we do not yet have confirmation of the publication date. Of course, as would anyone, I would prefer to wait until publication before making decisions on the programming of business. I would expect the programming of forthcoming business to be carried out in the normal way between the usual channels.