Lord Fowler
Main Page: Lord Fowler (Crossbench - Life peer)
The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now begin. A limited number of Members are here in the Chamber, respecting social distancing. Other Members will participate remotely, but all Members will be treated equally wherever they are. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak—please accept any on-screen prompt to unmute. Microphones will be muted after each speech. I ask noble Lords to be patient if there are any short delays as we switch between physical and remote participants.
If the House will indulge me for a moment, this is the 50th anniversary to the day of a number of Peers being elected in the general election of 18 June 1970 who have served continually in the House of Commons and the House of Lords ever since. They are Lord Prescott, Lord Pendry, Lord Cormack, Lord Cunningham of Felling and Baroness Fookes—and, indeed, me. I congratulate them—my colleagues, that is—on having survived 50 years of continual service. We might not always have agreed, but one thing I can say with absolute certainty and without doubt is that we have never had a stranger Parliament than this in the last half-century. Let us get on with the business of the hybrid House.