House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Lord Elton Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it may be possible to accuse the noble Lord, Lord Steel, of certain things but to accuse him of discourtesy is quite wrong. What he seeks to do as a Private Member in charge of this Bill, having listened to colleagues in all parts of the House, is to produce something that is more acceptable to most of them than his previous Bill was. What he proposes in the Motion that he has moved this morning will enable us to move on, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has said, to substantive discussions on those parts of the Bill on which there is, I detect, a fairly general consensus in this House. We are all in the debt of the noble Lord, Lord Steel. We should thank him for what he has done and support his proposal.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I am a friend to this Bill. I rise briefly to say only that I am also a friend to the noble Lord, Lord Steel. However, I deeply regret the precedent that we are setting by allowing your Lordships to come through the Front Door of the House to discover that the Order of Business is completely different from what it was the night before. I hope it is not something that will be done in the future.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I should point out that this has already been done when the government Chief Whip moved a Motion that the Welfare Reform Bill should be considered in Grand Committee without having consulted properly with the officials of the House to see whether that was practically possible. Unfortunately, that precedent has already been created.