Arrangement of Business

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, before we start Oral Questions today, I thought this would be a good opportunity to remind Members that the House wishes the questions that are asked to be short, sharp, succinct and to the point. As I have said before, it is called Question Time for a reason. There is no greater favour that a noble Lord asking a question can do for a Minister than to make a speech before asking the question. Equally, the House expects Ministers, when replying to questions, to be short, sharp, succinct and to the point. If we do this, we will have greater scrutiny of Ministers and the Government at Question Time, and more Members will get an opportunity to ask a question.

When questions are being asked, we move around the House, enabling Members from different Benches to get in. If a Member from a particular Bench asks a question, it is unlikely that we will get back to that Bench before supplementary questions from other Benches have been asked. For example, the first Question today is from the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch. After the noble Baroness has asked a supplementary question and it has been answered, we will then move around to other Benches. I would not normally expect another Conservative Member to ask a question until we have heard from the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Cross Benches, and maybe even the Bishops’ Benches.

I hope that is clear and of assistance to the House. My only intention in standing at the Dispatch Box and making these contributions on a regular basis is for Question Time to be more effective and provide greater scrutiny, and to allow Members across the House to participate in this most important part of our business. I hope all noble Lords will bear these remarks in mind when participating in future.