Business of the House

Lord Strathclyde Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, I do not represent a considered view of the whole Cross Bench, but I will make one or two points. The first is that what the noble Lord, Lord True, said about making sure that we reaffirm the various conventions that operate this House would be a good thing. I certainly would play my part in trying to deal with that because, in some ways, this is a mild breakdown of conventions.

My second point is a very simple one: the Report stage of this Bill was the right size to fit into four days before the 67 amendments appeared. Looking at the 67 amendments, I think that they are quite major amendments and one would expect, therefore, there to be additional time required for the proper consideration of those amendments, particularly in view of the fact that they will not have been discussed in Committee, at Second Reading or even in the House of Commons. When the usual channels talk about this again, there may have to be some further time for this all. We will have to sit very late on at least a couple of those days that are coming up.

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, this debate becomes more and more confusing as time goes by. It strikes at the heart of the way we manage this House, where we ask the usual channels to meet regularly and come to agreements. Most of the time that is exactly what is done to the advantage of us all. Even if some of us do not like the decision that the usual channels have taken, we accept them.

What I do not understand in this case is why things have broken down so catastrophically, particularly when my noble friend Lord True has explained how, at earlier stages of this Bill, the Opposition worked very hard with the Government to be able to deliver the Bill on a timetable. I would understand if the end of the Session were a few weeks away or a couple of months away, but we know that the end of the Session will not happen for another six months. There is no rush; there is no reason we have to sit in the mornings to complete this Bill.

Furthermore, we are a part-time House in the sense that we meet in the afternoons and evenings. I speak as chairman of the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords, which meets on a Wednesday morning at 10 o’clock. That means that very distinguished senior Members of the House who sit on that committee will be unable to come and listen to the deliberations on what the noble Baroness the Leader of the House and my noble friend Lord True have recognised is an extremely important Bill. I echo my noble friend in saying: would it not be better if both Motions were to be withdrawn so that realistic discussions could be had by the usual channels in order to come to an agreement?

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make two very brief points: one specifically aimed at the noble Lord, Lord True, and the other a more general point about the House and its procedures.

The point for the noble Lord, Lord True, concerns the wording of his amendment, which says that,

“the House should continue normally to sit at the customary times”.

That is a long-winded way of saying it should continue in the future as it always has done in the past with no revision whatsoever. I am sure the noble Lord has not forgotten, but I remind some Members of the House, and maybe inform some new Members, that it is not so long ago since the customary times for meeting in this House involved Wednesdays for Private Members’ Bills and Thursdays for government Bills starting at 3 pm. This is a House with people, we hope, coming from all parts of the country. We did not start the business of the day until 3 pm. It was a struggle to get that change through, but we got it through. I am not aware of anyone —please stand up if I am wrong—on these Benches or any others who thinks we should revert to what was then the customary times of sitting.

The other point is about the procedures of the House. The fundamental function of this House is to scrutinise legislation. That is what we do. If anyone suggests to me that we scrutinise more effectively at 1 am than at 1 pm, I would ask them to reconsider their position. I watch day after day the attendance in this House—we know the figures; we can look them up; we can check the voting figures. When the House is sitting even at 9.30 pm, there is many a time when there are only about eight, nine or 10 people in the House: two on the Government Front Bench, a couple on the Opposition Front Bench, someone in the Chair, a couple of Cross-Benchers and maybe one or two with a particular interest in the Bill. That does not compare—