Procedure and Privileges

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, further to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—as I think he likes to be addressed—in relation to bringing Oral Questions under control, I am grateful to the Senior Deputy Speaker for his efforts to do that and I think the proposals are sound, but may I seek clarification from him that in attempting to monitor these newly introduced time limits, the clock will, as it does when we exceed speaking allocation limits, flash in red and show the speaker they are out of time? That might be a more reassuring prospect to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, than the thoroughly alarming prospect of the Lord Speaker intervening.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I appeared in your Lordships’ House in 2006 and Questions were being asked. I had listened, time was nearly running out, and I spoke, but I had a piece of paper. All around the House, word went out: “Reading, reading, reading!” And I showed my piece of paper, which did not have a word on it. So, dear friends—I say “friends” because “Lords” sounds a little too grand here—for a self-regulating body to give power to the Lord Speaker to intervene in a debate is trying to imitate what happens in the other place.

We need to discipline ourselves. For example, if there are only 20 seconds left of the 10 minutes at Question Time on a particular Question, people should not ask a question. We have been breaking the time limit, so we need to discipline ourselves, and I, for one, want to endorse the report of the committee that worked on this. Let us try it out and see what happens. Maybe next time when I hear a very long, read speech, I will stand up and say, “Reading, reading, reading!”

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I think a dress code is a sign of respect. We sit in this beautiful House, and it is respectful to dress properly. We are on the television and people are viewing the proceedings in this House. We are the only House that does not have a strict dress code. When we look at the United States, France and the European Union, we see that every man wears a tie, women dress in suits and, especially in the summer, they cover themselves.