Arrangement of Business
Debate between Lord Ryder of Wensum and Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, as I said earlier on, this should not have been necessary. I was perhaps not quite as blunt as my noble friend Lord Tebbit would have liked. For once, I will be a little more like my noble friend. Had we had a more appropriate approach to scrutiny of other Bills then we would not be sitting an extra week. If Members of the Labour party wish to know how much they have cost the House, I am happy to tell them.
Lord Ryder of Wensum
My Lords, further to the comments made by my noble friend Lord Tebbit, will the noble Baroness undertake to use her best endeavours to ensure that her colleagues in the other place change or reform the introduction of the automatic guillotine for every piece of legislation that comes to your Lordships’ House? That places an extra burden on your Lordships’ House and clearly also on the Government Chief Whip. In the interests of democracy, the changes brought in by the Blair Government at the turn of the century are undemocratic and exceedingly harmful to British democratic traditions.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, my noble friend says what I hear from all sides of the House. There is a real anxiety, not just from those who have been Members of another place but also from those who have seen what happens there, that proper scrutiny is curtailed by a Government having control of the knife, as others opposite did in a Labour Government, or a guillotine. That is not the best way to run business. It is not the way that we choose to run business here. We came close to having to seek assistance from the House earlier this year. The House took a decision of which we can be proud that we want to move ahead without having guillotines in the House. As I said at the beginning, the corollary to that is that the House has to be self-regulating in the way that it carries through business. I feel, as I am sure does every Member of the House here, that that is the right way to go ahead; to have proper scrutiny but within a timeframe that is reasonable to deliver government business.