House of Lords: Sittings

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I shall not answer the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, point by point. I think politicians delude themselves when they believe their own rhetoric, and I am afraid he is a perfect example of such a delusion. I propose to deal with the practicalities of how this House can deal with the fact that it wants to give time to deal with this most important topic.

I start with the fact that the day suggested in the noble Lord’s Motion is a national bank holiday in Scotland shows, in my view, an appalling ignorance of how important it is for the United Kingdom that we recognise each other’s bank holidays in this respect. I do not take that casually. I also do not take it casually that his proposal would mean that not only Peers but members of staff would have to curtail their holiday arrangements to be here to meet his requirements. I would rather concentrate on what we are planning to do.

Yesterday, we issued a Forthcoming Business in which there were two days of debate scheduled to deal with the take-note Motion on withdrawal. We have had to abandon one and will have to start again. As noble Lords will know, as a result of conversations in the usual channels I have agreed to extend that debate to three days. So we will be discussing these very subjects, which I appreciate that the noble Lord takes very much to heart, on 9, 10 and 14 January. I think that gives everybody proper time to absorb the situations as they exist and I hope noble Lords will appreciate the time that has been given. I cannot accept the noble Lord’s Motion and I hope that the House rejects it.

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

My Lords, I regret very much that my long-term and noble friend Lord Adonis did not see fit to consult or inform me on what he was doing because I would have been able to inform him then that, as a result of ongoing negotiations—some of them tense, at times, but nevertheless in the proper way of negotiations—we have the extra day. That is proportionate to the time that the Commons has and, most importantly, it allows the House of Lords to vote and therefore fulfil its constitutional duty and role of informing the House of Commons of our point of view. I very much regret that he did not do so.

During my 23 years in the other place, perennially at the time of a recess somebody would jump up, irrespective of party, and demand that we cut our allegedly long holiday short and attend to the needs of the nation, because something was in doubt and all the rest of it. This was so that they could get their image in the constituency or in the country as one who did not care about long holidays. I see various former Members agreeing with me on that. I certainly do not think that is my noble friend’s ulterior motive because he has never had the difficulty or problems of being elected to public office.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord McAvoy]

It is difficult to imagine them unless you have been. But I gently say to my noble and good friend: perhaps there is an ulterior motive, if he is thinking of pursuing a vote. There have been 119 votes this year and my noble friend has voted on 56 occasions—a 47% turnout. Maybe his ulterior motive is to boost his voting rate. I am not quite sure.

With regard to the bank holiday in Scotland, I say with much regret to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward: you stole my line. I have to say to my noble friend that to move that we meet on 2 January is typical of many of the metropolitan, London-based people who do not seem to care much about Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, or to consider the regions of England. It was thoughtless and that is one reason why I am opposed to this. I will be voting against the Motion. I urge my Labour colleagues—such as are here—to vote with me, and I hope the House will reject the Motion.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I was hoping that the Labour Chief Whip would be able to summon more colleagues to sit behind him to support his comments. It is not a very good illustration of what should be in order today. I shall speak very briefly, although not so much on the question of the date because the staff of this place need to be able to go to their families for Christmas and the new year with their dates secured and not disrupted by a surprise decision to change the sitting dates. I sympathise very much with them, and we should have regard to them. That is important.

However, I very much agree with the substance of what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about the under- lying crisis. I am sorry to sound pompous, but there has been a very frivolous reaction so far from the Government Chief Whip and the Labour Chief Whip. They seem to have no anxiety or feeling of crisis about what is going on in this country. It is an appalling situation.

If I may just reminisce very quickly—