House of Lords: Procedures and Practices

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, on a point of order, I used to worry about the impression that women do not participate—

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Lord Lipsey]

I am happy to allow the noble Baroness to intervene so long as it is not on a point of order.

[Baroness Deech]

I just wanted to give another impression to the noble Lord, who is concerned about women being shouted down at Question Time. I carried out a statistical survey over four weeks and discovered that proportionally there were more interventions by women at Question Time than would be expected from their number in the House. In other words, they are not shouted down; they are managing quite nicely and the noble Lord ought not to worry.

[Lord Lipsey]

I am delighted that there are some bullying women as well as some bullying men.

I come to my final comment, which reflects a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It is true that the forces of conservatism that I have described have this House in a strong grip, but they need not be allowed to have that grip. Down in the Commons, people said, “We’ll never get a business committee here”, but they have. People said, “We’ll never get to elect Select Committee chiefs here”, but they have. Back-Benchers have fought for their roles and rights and they have won their roles and rights. If I am right that in this House there is now a new spirit—particularly among the new arrivals, although there are many distinguished older Members who share it—we simply have to stop knuckling under out of a false politeness towards the official leaders of the House and force change through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, when I joined this House, I inquired how long it would take me to master the way it worked. I was told that 10 years was about the length. I have now had the privilege of being a Member for nine years, so I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I am only 9/10ths right in my conjectures about procedure.

I have two suggestions. One relates to the way in which we consider and debate amendments. In my estimation, it is unnecessarily hard—indeed, confusing—to express and debate amendments in the way that we do. Take, for example, the piece of paper headed, “Amendments to be Moved [Supplementary to the Marshalled List]”—opaque enough in itself, and as each amendment is tabled, the numbers change, so that those who have drafted them originally or are involved in moving them have to keep track of what number they have become when they are planning to be in the House or discussing them prior to the debate.

Another example of difficulty is from the Assisted Dying Bill list of amendments:

“Page 2, line 27, leave out ‘an’ and insert ‘a fully’”.

On its own this is almost incomprehensible and involves much shuffling of paper, whispered consultations and, in the case of a Division, last-minute consultation of the Bill papers and the seeking of advice as to what it is about. In fact, what that amendment sought to do was to change the wording from “an informed basis” to “a fully informed basis”—a state of mind much more difficult to judge. The subsection concerned—Clause 3(3)(c)—is about what the doctors must be satisfied of in acceding to a person’s desire to bring his life to an end. That amendment would make a significant alteration.

The obvious clarification and assistance for noble Lords in this digital age would be for amendments to be produced in tracked form in the text of the Bill. Each proposed amendment would be presented as if inserted in the Bill. It ought to be possible, if each noble Lord is equipped with an iPad, to see the entire text of the Bill that is being debated on that day with amendments inserted. I stand to be corrected, but arranging that cannot be more onerous for our wonderful staff than printing overnight the amendments in the form in which they are now presented. This House is going to be refurbished in coming years and it will be essential and indisputably an improvement to arrange digital screens in front of every seat, in the way that some Committee Rooms already provide, or to have many more annunciator screens in large print around the Chamber showing the amendment in its actual setting. This House should take full advantage of the very considerable amounts of money that have been spent on bringing us into the digital age.

My second point relates to the comprehensiveness and evenness of our discussions about foreign affairs. Because it is fairly rare for a debate to be arranged by the Government on an aspect of foreign affairs, our discussions are dominated by the Questions tabled by individual noble Lords with their individual interests. I looked at the Oral Questions tabled for the last two weeks before Christmas as an example. There are Questions about Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iran, Ireland and Sudan. Questions for Short Debate may never find time to be debated at all, but currently refer to Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Eritrea, Israel, the Philippines, Russia and North Korea. On the day I checked, Questions for Written Answer, which are guaranteed an Answer, included references to Palestine, Ukraine, Iraq, the Caribbean, Burma, Guinea Bissau, Colombia, the UAE, the Congo, Zimbabwe and Sudan. There are some very significant omissions and no particular programming according to topicality or importance, or failure to address for a number of years. There was nothing about China; nothing about Europe, the Far East or Australasia; and nothing about the United Nations or the USA. Can it be right that in one calendar year there were 308 Questions and debates about Israel/Palestine but 27 about Russia and 24 about China? I suggest that an overwhelming number about one country alone does not suggest expertise but obsession. It is a situation that does not improve the standing of this House and its involvement with foreign affairs in the eyes of observers. Should it not be for consideration that there should be a survey of the areas of the world that need periodic attention in this House, and that either the Government should ensure that there is time to debate them or that noble Lords be invited to table Questions on areas in an even way, without concentration on one at the expense of others?

I complained about this myself in early 2012 when the unfortunately named Arab spring was at its height. I said then that 300 Questions had been tabled in that Session on Israel and only one relating to the Arab spring. The Government responded by scheduling, albeit belatedly, a debate on the Arab spring. I am afraid that our coverage two years later continues to be erratic in relation to the areas of the world to which our attention should be turning.