House of Lords: Debates

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It would of course be open to the House, if it put proposals to the Procedure Committee, to decide that one way of addressing the problem that the noble Lord raises would be a limit on the number of speakers. As with so many things in this House, there is another side to the argument: if one had a fixed limit and the first noble Lords who put their names down to take part all had the same view, we would not have much of a debate. As often, then, this issue is not straightforward, but that is the kind of thing that one could look at. It is also true that there are a number of debates where we are short on speakers, so we have the problem of undersubscription as well as oversubscription.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I hope this will not be regarded as a breach of our convention that we do not criticise the other place, but I express the hope that we do not try to go down the road that they have increasingly followed in recent years where a debate turns into little more than a conversation between the Minister who is trying to make a speech and Back-Benchers who are incessantly interrupting.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

That has seriously reduced the quality of debate at the other end of the Palace.

[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.