Arrangement of Business

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, in the 20 minutes that we have had for this European Council Statement, not a single female Member of this House apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was able to subject the Government to scrutiny. I therefore wonder whether the House will consent to hear me put a question to the noble Lord the Leader on the European Council. My question is to do with the banking union.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, the Motion is whether the House should adjourn.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, the point is that the debate that we are now on is about whether or not the House should adjourn during pleasure for 10 minutes. I suspect that it is probably my fault that we are in this position. I said that the first Statement should not start before 4 pm; it started pretty much on the dot of 4 pm, and perhaps if we had delayed it for another 10 minutes we would have been able to continue without a gap at all. I am in a bit of a quandary because I would have hoped that the Statement in the Commons from the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have already begun.