Business of the House

Lord True Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord True]

To leave out from “that” to end and to insert “given no persuasive case has been put for systematically abandoning the usual conventions governing the sitting times of the House, the House should meet at 3pm on Wednesday 22 and Wednesday 29 October and that consideration of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill should begin after oral questions on those days; and the House should continue normally to sit at the customary times, as set out in the Companion to the Standing Orders.”

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader for the constructive tone in which she spoke. I fear we may not be able to reach agreement at the end, but I appreciate the way she addressed the matter.

I want to make one thing clear at the start: we on this side recognise the importance the Government attach to this Bill. Indeed, we support many of the measures in it and we have absolutely no intention of blocking its passage to Royal Assent. Since we hear mutterings offstage about the OBR, let me make that clear to it as well—although, in fact, the OBR says nothing about requiring Royal Assent; all it asks for is consideration of policy announcements. It asks the Government to provide it with details of any proposed policy changes so that it can incorporate these in its forecast. Announcements have been made, so the OBR can incorporate them. Let us leave that canard aside.

The issue I want to raise is not delay, not the OBR, not even the Budget, which many people are looking forward to with some foreboding. The reason why I have tabled this amendment, and it is unusual, is that I believe it is time to review how we may best conduct our affairs. This was in some ways implicit in what the noble Baroness said. No one wants late nights. Many do not want morning sittings, which interfere not only with those who have business to conduct outside the House but with our Select Committees. Yet, because of the sheer weight of legislation, often ill thought through—this is not a novel matter—we are slipping into both morning sittings and late nights.

We best conduct our affairs by agreement in the usual channels, based on what I hold as the sacred constitutional principle that the King’s Government must be carried on: where, if greater scrutiny than originally envisaged is required, more latitude is given to the revising House by the Executive; and where, on the other hand, if the Government have extra need and good cause to make progress, the other parties agree exceptionally to sit outside normal hours. I believe profoundly that the best way to go forward for us is a reinforcement and restatement of our conventions in a spirit of give and take between all sides.

There are constant insinuations outside that your Lordships’ House obstructs government business. I took the previous Prime Minister to task on that when it was said, quite wrongly, as the noble Baroness will remember. What this House does is scrutinise legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to those who spoke and to the Leader. I will come to her remarks at the end. I do not want to abuse the Companion, so I will not make a long wind-up speech. I was not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, was saying that the Liberal Democrats’ view was that morning sittings should become the norm. If that is the case, this should be a matter for Procedure Committee.

I agreed with what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, and I grateful to him for picking up my point on reinforcing conventions, which the noble Baroness also picked up. He and my noble friend Lady McIntosh highlighted that 67 amendments have gone down. This is new material, and that must have an effect on the consideration on Report, notwithstanding what the other place might think of it.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde made a point I made about the difficulty of morning sittings for the committees of your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, referred to the words “customary times” in the amendment. These were suggested to me by the clerks, rather than setting out all the existing times, which would have led to a lengthy Motion. I certainly do not want to go back to the traditions of long ago, when we sometimes met on a Saturday.

I am grateful for the tone of the Leader, and I believe that this should be possible, as it was in Committee on this Bill—and it should be possible for all Bills. That is always my aspiration. The noble Baroness referred to the LUR Bill. We let that Bill run for 15 days in Committee, over which many people in the House got to know something about what my view about that Bill actually was. I hope my noble friend is not behind me.

My fundamental point is that I hope this occasion will be an unusual occasion, not a usual one, because the usual place should be the usual channels. I am confident that, if we do have the kind of discussions that the noble Baroness has talked about in the normal spirit of amity between the Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and my noble friend Lady Williams, we can find a way forward on this Bill that will allow for the time that may be required by the new material.

But I do not particularly care to negotiate with the equivalent of a revolver on the table. I was disappointed that the noble Baroness would not withdraw her Motion, so I will test the opinion of the House because it should be marked that this is a business Motion that has gone down without the consent of the usual channels. This is a moment in the passage of this House from the way we conduct our business towards where it might otherwise go. The noble Baroness has given us an assurance that she does not want to go in that direction, and I accept her word. But I believe that we should mark our displeasure at this, and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.