Arrangement of Business

Lord Hughes of Woodside Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, perhaps we can deal with one thing at a time. Today is Friday and, as I understand it, there is a convention about rising at 3 pm. I think that the reason for that is that people want to know where they stand: they know what time their trains and aeroplanes leave and what time they hope to see the hills that the Bishop spoke about. Therefore I hope that we can stick to this time. People may well also have lined up evening engagements because they knew that the finishing time was 3 pm. I hope that we can proceed on this basis.

The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, mentioned another point. In organising the business there is a sense of taking account of the number of speakers lined up. If, ultimately, there is a late rush, these are the circumstances that we get into. I hope that we can proceed now with four hours and 50 minutes. That could diminish.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

I know that we want to get on with it but I want to draw the noble Lord’s attention to the fact that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, ran over by 20 minutes to accommodate him. Why can we not sit late to accommodate these Second Readings?

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, in the interests of not making things any worse than they already are, would it not make sense if we made immediate progress on the business in hand?