Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Hughes of Woodside

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I have listened to the noble Lords, Lord Martin of Springburn and the Leader of the House. They both claim, each in their different way, that this is a wholly independent procedure. Are we really to believe that one morning the Speaker gets up and says, “Eureka, I’m going to decide whether this is financial privilege or not”? Who initiates the process? It is hard to believe there was not a nudge and a wink from the Government to try to save their own blushes.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, is not the reality that when the Government have run out of arguments and patience they ask the Speaker if he will invoke financial privilege? They cross their fingers and hope that he will do so. Do this Government actually want the House of Lords to operate as a revising Chamber or not?

House of Lords: Reform

Debate between Lord Howarth of Newport and Lord Hughes of Woodside

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Should not addiction to constitutional reform be treated with the same bracing cure as addiction to welfare benefits? Will the Government set a cap on the amount that ordinary, decent, hard-working British citizens are to be required to pay to support the constitutional reform dependency of the Liberal Democrats?