Legislative Timetable

Lord Ryder of Wensum Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ryder of Wensum]

Exactly two years ago, on 5 October 2009, at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, the then shadow Leader of the House of Commons, now its Leader, Sir George Young, stated:

“Conservatives will legislate less, but we will also legislate better. So today I can announce that we will abolish the practice of automatically guillotining government bills”.

Why have Sir George and the Government broken those two promises?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, on the first point, I am delighted to tell my noble friend that in the first Session of the last Labour Administration, in 2005-06, 4,005 pages of legislation were enacted. So far this Session, which is longer than the 2005-06 one, we have passed only 1,392 pages of legislation. As for automatic timetabling in another place, that is up to the procedures there. However, I understand that most of that timetabling is agreed with the Opposition, very often without a vote.