Procedure and Privileges
Debate between Lord Sentamu and Baroness Goldie
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!”