Business of the House

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Agreement, not unilateral action, is the only sensible way forward for the House on this Bill and all other matters. Frankly, if it means an extra half-day or day’s consideration within our usual hours to review a Bill that Ministers boast is being rewritten, is avoiding that one-odd day’s scrutiny worth breaking the precious jewel of consensus that is the mysterious secret of managing this revising Chamber? I submit that it is not and I ask the noble Baroness to continue in the normal course of compromise and not press her Motion. If not, I reserve the right to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, as a member of the usual channels, I regret that we have not reached an agreement. But I think it has to be recognised by the House that every Government ask for help when their legislative programme is under pressure. That is inevitable in a House where the pace of the business is unpredictable. I remind the noble Lord, Lord True, that he was responsible for the Procurement Bill, where we had 350 amendments tabled in Committee—so there is a little whiff of hypocrisy, I fear, in this amendment.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

There are three good arguments for opposing this amendment. If we do not accept some flexibility, we are going to be here later and later at night. We are going to have more late sessions: that is the reality. The late sessions are not good for scrutiny. People of our age should not be working late hours of the night. Last night I was here at midnight and there were about 12 other Peers in the Chamber, scrutinising a very important Bill. That is the reality of working late.

We also have—and I accept that the noble Lord, Lord True, mentioned this—a duty of care towards our staff and ourselves in working the late hours that we have been doing. We spend millions on the security of this House but do not give much attention to the fact that people are leaving very late at night when public transport is no longer available. We therefore have to show some flexibility. We have accepted this Motion and accept the quid pro quo that, if we are going to meet early, we finish at a reasonable time. That is how the House should operate.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I do not represent a considered view of the whole Cross Bench, but I will make one or two points. The first is that what the noble Lord, Lord True, said about making sure that we reaffirm the various conventions that operate this House would be a good thing. I certainly would play my part in trying to deal with that because, in some ways, this is a mild breakdown of conventions.

My second point is a very simple one: the Report stage of this Bill was the right size to fit into four days before the 67 amendments appeared. Looking at the 67 amendments, I think that they are quite major amendments and one would expect, therefore, there to be additional time required for the proper consideration of those amendments, particularly in view of the fact that they will not have been discussed in Committee, at Second Reading or even in the House of Commons. When the usual channels talk about this again, there may have to be some further time for this all. We will have to sit very late on at least a couple of those days that are coming up.