House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Strathclyde

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I gently remind your Lordships that we are meant to be discussing Amendment 5, which is about Standing Orders and the replacement of vacancies among people excepted from Section 1.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I think that that was as a result of an intervention from my noble friend, so perhaps I could just finish my remarks but also say how much I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that this is a short Bill of three clauses. The Maastricht Bill was four clauses long and that was debated for days and days in Committee on the Floor of the House in another place and then in this House, again for several days. The size of the Bill has no relevance to how much it should be debated.

As for the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, with his little lecture on amendments, I look forward to seeing his submission to the Procedure Committee to describe amendments in different ways. I accuse the Liberal Democrats of stretching every single sinew of the clerks’ patience in order to find ways of putting amendments down. I remind my noble friend Lord Cormack that this is the first time, the first day I have spoken on this Bill. He has spoken far longer than I have during the passage of this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I very gently repeat the encouragement I made a few moments ago that the House should address Amendment 5 in the name of my noble friend.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I shall make one very short point: what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has misunderstood in all of this is that although I oppose this Bill, I am prepared to accept it in exchange for an appointments commission, which I think would be extremely sensible. With that, I finish my brief intervention.