Courts and Tribunals Bill

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 27th October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to place on record, as I have before, my strong support for the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I am not going to repeat what he said; he said virtually everything that can be said and I agree with everything he said. It is within your Lordships’ power to give effect to the proposals contained in this amendment and I hope that one day we will.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, last Thursday in this Chamber, we debated a written constitution. During that debate, I took the opportunity to praise my noble friend Lord Rooker for making the points that he had made at previous Second Readings and makes again tonight. He speaks with great authority and experience.

I will say only two things. First, it should not be impossible for this House to be advised in some appropriate way of the elements of Bills—whether clauses or amendments—that did not, in fact, get debated in another place. Secondly, even if that did happen, it would not solve the underlying problem that my noble friend notes, which is that our legislative processes need to be improved.