King’s Speech

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow on from the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Purvis. It was, if they do not mind me saying so, an even greater pleasure to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, and the noble Lord, Lord Roe—or, as I now know it is pronounced in the south of Scotland, Ray. Sorry, I think I owe the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, a drink now. They were captivating and hilarious speeches. The noble Baroness’s expertise on the workings of the European Union have been honed over many years in Brussels and in the many committees of this House. That will make this coming Session a bit of a busman’s holiday, although I was not quite sure whether she wanted to stay late or not—no? Nor do I, but there we are.

The noble Lord, Lord Roe, and I have not managed to get together very much, so I say a very belated welcome to him. One thing I should say is that I am a member of the Services Committee, as is the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, and I wanted to check that the noble Lord has done his fire safety training. If not, the enforcement team were out in uniform earlier on and the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard will be able to get them, and their quite sharp instruments, to encourage the noble Lord to do that.

I am also looking forward to the speech of the Leader of the House. Your Lordships will have noted that today she was carrying the cap of maintenance. Of course, one of the things that we will have to do later this Session is to turn to R&R. I was thinking of that as we saw her.

Our King has had a remarkable period recently, a great highlight of which was his visit to the United States, where he was able to mix wisdom, international relations and humour in the correct proportion to such a good effect. I hope that all sides of the House feel, as I do, that we are immensely lucky to have His Majesty as a Head of State and that we take great pride in him.

The legislative programme as outlined in the gracious Speech would appear to be very heavy, with seven Bills already carried over from the previous Session. In that last Session, 19% of the days sat ended after 10.40 pm. This was a big increase from the two previous Sessions, where that percentage was under 7%. Despite sitting late, the Session lasted 21 months. I have no doubt that we will be sitting late on many of the Bills outlined in the gracious Speech, but we can help ourselves by respecting a bit more our agreed rules, set out in our Companion. Each time even a small change is made to the Companion, it is agreed by the whole House on the Floor of the House. The Companion is our self-regulation rulebook and I hope, in a gentle way, that the Whips on all sides of the House will be more active in reminding Members of our own rules, just as the Cross Benches’ redoubtable Margaret, Countess of Mar, used to do.

Another feature of recent Sessions has been the great increase in ping-pong. The Salisbury/Addison convention, so key to our relationship with the other place, has evolved over its 81 years. The Cross Bench office has published two recent papers on the statistics. These show that in recent years we are playing ping-pong on more Bills, with more balls, and that the rallies are getting longer. It is a trend and, unless it is addressed, these numbers will continue to rise. It is therefore important for all sides of the House to consider matters and in some way refresh this very important convention. Here, I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord True, said earlier. We certainly need to arrest this trend, and we might conclude that some of the ping-pong should not be necessary. I hasten to add that I am not saying that this House should shy away from expressing its view on legislation. What I am saying is that the mutual respect between the two Houses needs work, and the spirit of compromise needs to be revived somewhat.

Before I move to my closing theme, I wanted to associate myself with the words on antisemitism that have been said by the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Purvis. For once I feel that I can reflect strong views—from behind me and to my other side—in saying that those views are very much shared on the Cross Bench. We would very much like to work to ameliorate these things.

I close by moving on to Europe. Negotiating new arrangements with the European Union can never be quick. New arrangements, in all likelihood, will have to have the blessing of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. Having for some years run the scrutiny arrangements for the European Union Committee, I well recognise—alongside members of that committee and its sub-committees—how long these processes take. Indeed, complex matters are often calibrated in years. Another important feature relates to the way in which arrangements are debated and agreed within our structure. When we were leaving the European Union, the House will recall the first Miller case and the Supreme Court view that Parliament had to be involved in the process. Although the facts are different, the principles are the same. For this critical relationship with our next-door neighbours and largest trading partners, it is far from unreasonable to feel that Parliament must play a very full part in agreeing matters at every stage. This is also something that I feel the European Union side of the table might feel desirable. There will be a natural concern on their side that a future UK Government might want to repeal or replace the new arrangement in only a very few years. A good way of somewhat ameliorating that understandable fear on the part of the European Union would be the clear involvement of the whole of Parliament in the process. I very much look forward to the debate in the coming days.