HSBC: Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I agree with that but I wholly accept that questions need to be asked—and are habitually asked—of a Minister to make sure that he is accountable to Parliament. As I said in my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, if a committee of Parliament wishes to put questions to my noble friend, it is entirely free to do so.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, perhaps I can remind the Leader of the House of a report with which he will be, no doubt, almost word perfect: the report of the Leader’s Group on Working Practices, which made a number of recommendations. Of course, the group was established by the Leader for the Leader. Recommendation 3 of that report—which, I remind him again, was published more than a year ago in April last year—said:

“We … recommend that there should be a monthly question time dedicated to questions on House of Lords matters addressed to the Leader of the House”.

Perhaps I may helpfully suggest that both today’s Question and indeed the very important one raised last week by my noble friend Lord Barnett could be handled were the Leader to accept that simple, unanimous recommendation by a committee that was set up at his instigation. I urge him to act on that recommendation as soon as possible.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, from memory, I do not think that there has been a single Question put to me in my capacity as Leader of the House in the past 12 months. That rather leads me to believe that there is no great demand for a monthly Question Time session for the Leader. There are perfectly good methods for asking me questions and noble Lords should use them if they wish to.