House of Lords: Working Practices

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lady Saltoun of Abernethy]

My Lords, there is much I agree with in the report produced by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, but a few things I do not, as he well knows. I know that the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Kirkwood, will not agree with me, but here goes.

I ask those of your Lordships who would like to dispense with our traditional appellations and our convention of addressing other noble Lords in the third person to consider this. If you address people in the second person, that is as “you”, it is not difficult when you are angry or irritated to be quite rude to them. It is much more difficult to be rude to somebody when you have to address them in the third person. It is worth the time and the effort, simply because it cools things. Make no mistake, we do our work just as well when we are courteous and friendly to one another—in fact, we do it rather better than when we are ill-tempered because it is easier to work together to try to find a way forward.

The report at Chapter 6, paragraph 40, recommends giving up our traditional forms of address: the noble and gallant Lord, the noble and learned Lord—there are not many of them about nowadays. The correct forms of address matter too, for the same reason, as you may have to pause and think, and that does none of us any harm. While I am on the subject of conduct in the House, there is something—not in the report—which has happened on a number of occasions lately, which never used to happen, and that is constant interventions when a Peer is speaking in debate. This is quite out of order except to ask for clarification on some point, as is made quite clear in Chapter 4, paragraph 29 of the Companion to the Standing Orders. Interruptions in order to argue are not acceptable. On one occasion recently it was done to the point where it was as if a cabal had decided to torment the Peer speaking. They were like sharks that had smelt blood. I ask Peers to go and read the Companion. This kind of behaviour is customary in another place, but that is one of the ways in which we are different from another place, and I hope we shall continue to be so.

Turning back to the report, Chapter 6, paragraph 5 contains a totally nonsensical recommendation. It wants to scrap the formula:

“My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the order paper”

—all of 17 words, some of them very short, and substitute:

“My Lords, I beg leave to ask Her Majesty's Government”,

followed by the Question in full, which admittedly should not be more than 40 words. That makes 50 words altogether—and that is supposed to save time. I do not see the logic of that one.

The idea of sitting at 2 pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays horrifies me. Will the Dining Room start serving lunches at noon? What about the committees that sit in the morning? Will they rise half an hour earlier? Then they would probably have to sit half an hour earlier. That would mean that not only the Peers sitting on them would have to get here earlier, but so would the clerks and the doorkeepers and probably all the rest of the staff too. However much your Lordships want to make life tougher for other Peers, who do not matter, it is not right to make life tougher for the staff, who do. When is it envisaged that the party meetings would take place?

Have any discussions taken place with the Director of Facilities or whoever is responsible for the repairs and maintenance of the Palace of Westminster about the House sitting for a fortnight in September? I have always understood that it was essential that those responsible had at least 10 weeks clear and uninterrupted in order to do the maintenance work necessary. If we return in September, they will not get this. When and how is this essential work going to get done?