Procedure and Privileges Committee
Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Lord Reid of Cardowan
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, I support the noble Lords who have already spoken. Only a few months ago, it was brought to our attention that the way these things were being handled, as regards contributions by Members of your Lordships’ House, was in clear breach of the Bill of Rights and the conventions on freedom of speech for parliamentarians that had stood for several hundred years. I have no idea whether the new Companion will have addressed that issue or not; the only way to find out is to have the relevant sections and changes produced before this House and, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, have a full debate on them.
This is not a peripheral issue. It is the central issue of the role of parliamentarians and their right to speak as they see fit, provided that the Chamber itself is content with it. It cannot be right to have some sort of trigger point system—presumably based on artificial intelligence—setting up an alarm when something is said that is deemed not to be right by others outside this House. It is in clear breach of centuries of convention.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord raises a point that we might all be concerned about. I think Back-Benchers would like to know about these trigger points. I had not noticed that they were there. Back-Benchers would need to know what the criteria are, because people would always want to avoid them. There needs to be total agreement about the level of offence that would contravene one of the points. Perhaps the House might decide to accept such a trigger point, or perhaps it might not.