House of Lords: Sittings

Debate between Lord Dykes and Lord McAvoy

Thursday 20th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord McAvoy]

It is difficult to imagine them unless you have been. But I gently say to my noble and good friend: perhaps there is an ulterior motive, if he is thinking of pursuing a vote. There have been 119 votes this year and my noble friend has voted on 56 occasions—a 47% turnout. Maybe his ulterior motive is to boost his voting rate. I am not quite sure.

With regard to the bank holiday in Scotland, I say with much regret to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward: you stole my line. I have to say to my noble friend that to move that we meet on 2 January is typical of many of the metropolitan, London-based people who do not seem to care much about Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, or to consider the regions of England. It was thoughtless and that is one reason why I am opposed to this. I will be voting against the Motion. I urge my Labour colleagues—such as are here—to vote with me, and I hope the House will reject the Motion.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I was hoping that the Labour Chief Whip would be able to summon more colleagues to sit behind him to support his comments. It is not a very good illustration of what should be in order today. I shall speak very briefly, although not so much on the question of the date because the staff of this place need to be able to go to their families for Christmas and the new year with their dates secured and not disrupted by a surprise decision to change the sitting dates. I sympathise very much with them, and we should have regard to them. That is important.

However, I very much agree with the substance of what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about the under- lying crisis. I am sorry to sound pompous, but there has been a very frivolous reaction so far from the Government Chief Whip and the Labour Chief Whip. They seem to have no anxiety or feeling of crisis about what is going on in this country. It is an appalling situation.

If I may just reminisce very quickly—