House of Lords: Relevance
Baroness Goldie Excerpts(2 days, 12 hours ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
We are committed to reform, and we have already taken steps to modernise the House of Lords via the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act. It is a long-standing precedent across the political spectrum that Governments recommend new Peers to the sovereign. Retirements and other departures mean that new Peers will be needed to ensure that the Lords has appropriate expertise. In the first instance, we intend to respond later this year to the report by the committee of the House that made recommendations.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I may not regard myself as contemporary, but, coming from Scotland, I am a proud member of the United Kingdom, with British citizenship, and I am privileged to be in this House. Very recently, I have seen at first hand the manifestation of the expertise to which the Minister has been referring. The 97 year-old noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, delivered a crucial amendment to the Armed Forces Bill that was accepted by the Government, and my venerable noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who is in his mid-80s, has brought unrelenting pressure on the Government in respect of housing issues and child trust funds. Does that not suggest to the Minister that the Government should be very careful about interfering with the unique equilibrium which enables this Chamber to do the excellent job it does?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The Government’s manifesto committed to a mandatory retirement age, and clearly that was a large part of the consideration of the committee that was made up of Members of your Lordships’ House and which reported to it earlier this year. Although we have incredible examples of what Members of your Lordships’ House who are over the age of 80 do, that does not necessarily mean that we should not take forward reform. The Government will respond to the committee’s proposals in due course, as I made clear, and I look forward to future debates with Members from across your Lordships’ House.
BBC: Funding
Baroness Goldie Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Electronic Communications and Wireless Telegraphy (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Baroness Goldie Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Adonis
If the noble Baroness will forgive me, I am still on my feet, so I will not give way to her. Will the Minister agree to publish—
Baroness Goldie
I am sorry. The Minister is not going to make any response, Lord Adonis, until you take your seat and allow me to make an observation.
Lord Adonis
The noble Baroness cannot make an observation unless I give way to her and I am not giving way to her, if she will forgive me.
Will the Minister agree to publish the minutes of the stakeholder group that he has referred to? It seems to me important in our proceedings that we understand what the consultation responses in fact were, as they were clearly at variance with what the Government have done. Will the Government do that before this matter comes before the whole House?
Lord Adonis
I do not for a moment expect that Ofcom should be required to agree. On the contrary, it is the job of the Government and Parliament to decide what the law and the regulations will be. However, it is our responsibility as parliamentarians to be fully informed about what the stakeholders think. Nothing has been published. The consultation with Ofcom has been informal. We have no details of the consultations referred to in paragraph 10.2. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, told us that the UK Competitive Telecommunications Association, which some of us had never heard of before, was not consulted. The Minister says that it was consulted. This issue of what in fact happened is still not resolved across the Grand Committee. The whole situation is unsatisfactory.
To complete the broader point that I was making in respect of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, I do not think it reasonable to curb the rights of noble Lords to question Ministers on fundamental changes to the law of the kind that are being proposed simply because it is inconvenient to the Government, but that is what the noble Baroness and other Ministers have sought to do.
Baroness Goldie
I thank the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. I am interested in his surmise, because he gave me no opportunity to say why I wanted to intervene. In fact, there was a procedural issue to be addressed by the Chairman. I say to the noble Lord that there are rules, practices and courtesies in this House, which are listed in the Standing Orders and detailed in the Companion, whose purpose is to ensure that opportunities exist for full debates on important issues such as this. I would merely have observed earlier that the noble Lord should be careful not to stray into repetition, which Standing Orders do not permit, and be careful not to be accused of speaking on multiple occasions. I think I am not alone in being unclear about whether he is currently making a speech or another intervention. I merely ask him to observe the courtesies which everyone else in the House tries to observe for the mutual benefit of the House and all Members.
Lord Adonis
I am very grateful for the noble Baroness’s explanation but I do not believe that I was in any way infringing the courtesies of the House in seeking to question the Minister. The job of a Grand Committee is to elicit from Ministers information which is relevant to our consideration of these matters. However, we do not have the equivalent of a Committee stage in which we can propose amendments and hear explanations from the Government, which can then be questioned, so the only mechanism that we have in Grand Committee is to ask direct questions before the Minister sits down. Therefore, I do not accept for a moment that I was infringing the courtesies, the Standing Orders or the reasonable procedures of the House.
Unfortunately, it has become a pattern in Grand Committee for Whips to seek to curb proper debate and discussion. They are trying to railroad through these significant changes to the law with the minimum debate and the minimum questioning possible. I absolve the Minister from any intent to refrain from giving information, because he has been very forthcoming.