House of Lords: Debates

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Perhaps that sound is someone ringing from another place with a view on the quality of our debates. The response that the House gave to the comments made by my noble friend Lord Jenkin reminds us that we do not want slavishly to follow examples in another place.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if there were to be a minimum ration of, say, five minutes for each speech, surely it would not matter very much if from time to time debates ran on a little longer. That would facilitate the kind of more spontaneous and lively debating that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, rightly calls for while ending what is, frankly, the demeaning practice of limiting the time for noble Lords’ speeches sometimes to three minutes, and sometimes to two minutes or even one.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The whole House has taken a view about time-limited debates. The advantage of them is that noble Lords know how long they have to speak, when the debate is going to take place and so on. The ingenious suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, about allowing things to run on would effectively take time from someone else, and they would have an equally strong view the other way. These are not straightforward issues. One point worth making generally is that the amount of time in the previous Session set aside for debates was actually greater than that in the previous three Sessions. The noble Lord will probably know that I have brought forward proposals to the Procedure Committee to try to increase opportunities for debate and, importantly, for topical debates in particular because I know that there is widespread demand for that opportunity.