Procedure and Privileges

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be fairly brief, but to the point. I very much look forward to your Lordships’ House returning to some normality in September. This has indeed been a difficult time, but I would like to heap as much praise as I possibly can on to all those behind the scenes who have allowed the House to continue to function so smoothly since the introduction of hybrid proceedings. I am in no doubt that much has been learned and that, in many respects, our working practices have moved forward in a very positive and modernising way from an IT perspective.

I do not intend to go through the Procedure and Privileges Committee report paragraph by paragraph, but I will make the following brief observations. On the issue of speakers’ lists for Questions, I was interested to see that a good majority of the House voted to retain such lists. There is no doubt in my mind that previously, the situation could be quite intimidating for some noble Lords. I note from the House of Lords Library paper that since changes were made to the way supplementary oral questions are selected during hybrid proceedings, more female Members are taking part. Since March 2020, the proportion of supplementary questions asked by female Members has been higher, on average, each month when compared to previous years. This must be a very positive move in the right direction. I therefore wholeheartedly support the recommendation that there should be speakers’ lists for normal and topical Oral Questions and Questions to Lords Ministers who are members of the Cabinet.

On the issue of time allocated to Oral Questions and Private Notice Questions, I again support the recommendation that total question time for normal and topical Oral Questions be 40 minutes, and that the time allocated to Lords Ministers who are full Cabinet members be 30 minutes.

When one finds oneself last on the list of speakers, it is particularly frustrating to have to miss out on participating due to other noble Lords having over- stretched the time limit on their question. I therefore wonder whether some sort of rigid cut-off mechanism could be introduced which would enable a fairer allocation of time for each question.

I look forward to the return of voting in person, an essential ingredient of procedures in the House—a point made well by my noble friend Lord Lamont, who argued against allowing Members to continue to vote remotely, saying that it enabled some Members to claim that they were participating without interacting meaningfully with the business in the Chamber—excepting, of course, the arrangements for disabled Members.

On start times, I cannot for the life of me see why we are proposing to start so late on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My personal preference is to keep the current hours. From a selfish point of view—and I know this applies to others—it would allow those of us who have to travel substantial distances to make our way home to our families without having to stay an extra evening in London. Without going into it, I share the view on expenses of the noble Lord, Lord Elder.

Save for the issues that I have mentioned, I largely welcome the report’s recommendations. I will certainly be supporting the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lord Balfe.