Business of the House

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Grocott

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am slightly concerned about this. I am not a usual channel and the conversations that have taken place with such amity and warmth seem not to have reached me. I was unable, I am afraid, to be present for the debate on an humble Address on Tuesday, but I have read it carefully in Hansard and great attention and sanctification were given to the principle of the rule of law.

We have a statutory obligation to hold these by-elections. To proceed by using standing orders to eviscerate, in effect, that statutory obligation, which is what we are doing, seems to cast a very early question on this commitment to the rule of law that we have heard about. Understanding fully, of course, that this Motion will pass, I ask the Leader of the House why 18 months has been chosen and what that portends for the Government’s legislative timetable in relation to the reforms they wish to bring forward. We have no excuse here as we did before in relation to Covid; we are not in the middle of a major global health emergency, which was what justified the use of standing orders before, so can the noble Baroness explain to us what the Government’s plans are that make 18 months the appropriate time? Why could it not be six months?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I never quite thought this day would come. We have had endless Private Members’ Bills and numerous discussions on the Floor of the House, and now we have recognition, which I am delighted about, from the usual channels that to hold two further hereditary Peers’ by-elections at a time when Parliament was considering ending such elections would make us even more of a laughing stock than these by-elections do in any case.

I have to say it slowly: this almost certainly means the end of hereditary Peers’ by-elections. That is wonderful as far as I am concerned. It means an end to the clerk having to moonlight as a returning officer; it means an end to me having to give observations on the political significance of a particular by-election as and when it is declared; and of course it means that I shall not fulfil my ambition, which was to become the House’s equivalent of Professor Sir John Curtice in relation to by-elections. I should say as well, just as a general observation, that it means an end to elections that are men-only elections and an end to elections such as one where there was an electorate of three and six candidates—unknown in the western, eastern, northern or southern world, as far as I know.

So the time has come at last, in a puff of smoke on a damp Thursday morning, when these wretched by-elections will come to a conclusion. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan: know when it is over.

Procedure and Privileges Committee

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I am sorry to be accused of being cheap for discussing this with members of staff. I do not pretend that it was a representative sample or represents the majority—I cannot know that; consult the trade unions, perhaps—but I do know as a matter of fact and common sense that, if you are in a job where you start work at a set time in the morning and do not know from day to day what time at night you will finish, it is generally not a popular working practice. I think we should bear that in mind.

My final point is the same as the one the noble Lord, Lord Young, made—

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am genuinely puzzled by the noble Lord focusing on the end of the day and on this point about staff. Members of staff will still start out at a certain point in the morning and still will not know when they are going home at night, unless the 8.30 pm rule is going to be enforced by some means that has not been proposed. They could still be here at 10 pm. So I am genuinely puzzled as to how the noble Lord thinks this will resolve the issue, as opposed to shifting the time.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

If the noble Lord wants to put down an amendment saying that the 8.30 pm rule or the 10 pm rule should be compulsory and there must be a guillotine at that point, that would be worth considering, but I do not want to be too revolutionary.

I will try to conclude now, and I want simply to say this: all changes in this House of any procedural kind have nearly always been ferociously opposed. The one that I still bear the scars of is one we dealt with some years ago: changing Wednesdays and Thursdays. I know that most noble Lords will look blank when I mentioned this, especially if they have come here reasonably recently. Until this change took place, Wednesdays were the day on which general debates took place, along with Private Members’ Bills and non-divisible Motions. On Thursdays, we reverted to government business and— I will say this slowly—we started at 3 pm, finishing at 10 pm. It was not very friendly for people who do not live in London. That change of swapping those two days, which I suggested, was ferociously opposed. I do not think—although I will happily be intervened on if necessary—that there is a soul here now who would say, “Let’s go back to that. Let’s go back to starting at 3 pm on Thursdays and finishing at 10 pm”.