Business of the House

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

That is what it says, but why should we accept that? It is supposed to be a negotiation. If we wanted an alternative arrangement, I should have thought that the position should be us saying what that alternative is. I have heard, “We don’t know what the UK wants”, again and again. A specific amendment to the agreement might well be subject to further consideration.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the House of Commons sent us a Bill that its Members consider urgent. We should get on and consider its merits and demerits. Forty-nine noble Lords have put their names down for Second Reading, including the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. There will be ample time during Second Reading for all these points to be explored. I suggest that we get on and do it.

[Lord True]

My Lords, when the great US Constitution was written, there is a story of, I believe, Thomas Jefferson—

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Pannick]

That the Question be now put.

[The Deputy Speaker (The Countess of Mar) (CB)]

My Lords, I am instructed by the House to say that the Motion “That the Question be now put” is considered a most exceptional procedure, and that the House must not accept it save in circumstances where it is felt to be the only means of ensuring the proper conduct of the business of the House. Further, if the Member who seeks to move it persists in his intention, the practice of the House is that the Motion be put without debate.

[Lord Pannick]

I wish to move the Motion.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Question now is that the Question be now put.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes]

The reason we do this is that the other place does not do a very good job of scrutinising legislation. There are a lot of reasons for that. Compared with the normal proceedings of your Lordships’ House, the proceedings in the other place are much more party political. Anybody who reads Hansard can see that. In particular, since 1997, when Mr Blair introduced programme Motions, the amount of time dedicated to legislation has been severely truncated at all stages of Bills going through the other place. They often arrive in your Lordships’ House with very little scrutiny, and with some clauses and parts of Bills not scrutinised at all.

We have an important job to do. When my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Letwin was moving one of his Motions yesterday in the other place, he freely admitted that the Bill—which we will move on to at some stage—needed to be “tightened” and that that would be done by the House of Lords. So the other place now expects this House to do the job of perfecting legislation. That has been the case for some considerable time, but we have to have procedures to do it.

Standing Order 46 sets out the bare bones of how we approach legislation. It states:

“No Bill shall be read twice the same day; no Committee of the Whole House shall proceed on any Bill the same day as the Bill has been read the Second time; no report shall be received from any Committee of the Whole House the same day such Committee goes through the Bill, when any amendments are made to such Bill; and no Bill shall be read the Third time the same day that the Bill is reported from the Committee, or the order of commitment is discharged”.


Those arrangements—

[Lord Pannick]

Does the noble Baroness accept that, forceful though her points no doubt are, we have now been discussing the same points for three hours and 46 minutes, in the context of a Bill that has been sent to us by the House of Commons on an urgent basis? Does she not accept that it really is time to move on? She has put her name down for Second Reading. All these points could be made in her Second Reading speech.

[Baroness Noakes]

I fully hear what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, says, but I have a right to be heard on the Motion that I have put on the Order Paper. A considerable amount of the time has been taken up by noble Lords moving closure Motions, which involves two Divisions every time.