Localism Bill

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, the noble Lord is perfectly entitled to speak to an amendment that has not been moved because, as the clerks will tell one, an amendment belongs to the House. I have to say, though, that it is totally contrary to the spirit and conventions of this House that someone should seek to speak to an amendment that has not been moved. We cannot stop the noble Lord, but I hope that he will do so extremely briefly. I have a number of other amendments in exactly the same situation, and I do not intend to say anything about them at all.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)]

If the noble Lord speaks to the amendment, he must move it.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I also would like to comment on this. The groupings list says that these amendments have already been debated. They were not debated; they were not moved. This is because we considered that these issues were so important that they required major discussion. I had an undertaking from the Government that we would get full debating time to discuss these issues. I know how important the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is; all the amendments are important. It is essential that we have adequate time to discuss them, which we do not have today. If we are going to have a proper debate about them, that is important, but the record should be set straight that the amendments have not already been debated. They were simply not discussed because they were not moved for the reasons that I have given.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Does the Committee wish to discuss Amendment 168?