Procedure of the House

Lord Laming Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I would think these things through carefully before putting a proposal to the Procedure Committee. I am not looking for points of order in the way they have them in the other place. However, it would be useful from time to time to have a mechanism whereby one can raise issues on the Floor of the House. Sometimes I feel very frustrated because there are issues that I wish to raise, which is my duty as Leader of the Opposition, but unless there is something on the Order Paper that enables me to raise a point, I cannot do so. This is an issue that I wish to look at and I wish the Procedure Committee to look at.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, as a member of the committee, one thing that has impressed me most from day one is that committee members recognise fully that the House takes very seriously these matters and gives very careful consideration to them. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, might be reassured by the fact that in the time that I have been on the committee, neither the Chief Whip nor the Leader of the House has attempted to intimidate any member of the committee. Indeed, one thing that struck me is the way in which the committee goes into these matters with great seriousness and in great detail. Sometimes the degree of detail rather surprises me. We know that whatever report we bring to the House, it will be very carefully scrutinised.

When the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, came before the committee, he had the opportunity to present his concerns. Of course he did it with great expertise, as the Chamber would expect. We considered his concerns very carefully, but we were unanimous that we would be ill advised to change the existing procedures. I hope very much that the noble Lord will not feel the need to press this. The reality is that all these items will, I am sure, be revisited from time to time. I support the committee’s report and its recommendations, and I hope that the House will do so too.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, perhaps I may briefly detain the House to pick up one point, as it is the most suitable moment to do so. We have heard these encouragements to brevity in Questions ever since I can remember, but the only way of actually doing anything about it is as it happens. There is then a responsibility for both Front Benches, not just the government Front Bench, to bring their own side into compliance with the Standing Orders. That applies to many other procedures as well. If something goes wrong in a debate and there are only relatively inexperienced members on the Front Benches, then it falls to people who have been here for many years to take that responsibility on themselves, so that the House continues in good order. I hope that that is acceptable.