Arrangement of Business

Announcement

My Lords, before we start further consideration in Committee of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, I wish to make a short statement. I emailed all Peers on Wednesday afternoon to set out my position in light of the agreement to the Motion from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, which was agreed last Thursday in this House. I will briefly set out the headlines again to assist the House.

Noble Lords clearly accepted the proposition last week that more time was needed to scrutinise the Bill. I have taken time to consider all the options and discuss them with the noble and learned Lord, other noble Lords, the usual channels and the House administration. In coming to my recommended position, careful consideration has been given to the impact that additional time would have on the House staff, Members and government legislation.

We have always been clear that the Government are neutral, and that will not change. I also confirmed last week that additional time for the Bill will not be provided in time used for government legislation or other important House matters. Fridays therefore remain the only opportunity to scrutinise the Bill, which is a Private Member’s Bill.

Rather than seeking to adjourn the House at 3 pm today, as I have in previous weeks, in light of the Motion I will seek to adjourn the House at around 5.30 pm today and at 6 pm on subsequent Fridays that have already been allocated. I understand that some noble Lords are very disappointed by this fact, but the House spoke clearly last week and this is the only option I can see to fulfil the will of the House.

Ultimately, though, when we rise remains in the hands of noble Lords here. I remind noble Lords that, should they wish to rise earlier, any noble Lord can seek to adjourn the House at any point before 5.30 pm by moving the Motion that the House be now resumed. If that Motion is moved and carried, I will then adjourn the House.

We have previously discussed the particular concerns of different faith groups and accessibility considerations regarding the consequences of rising beyond 3 pm, and I remain very sympathetic to those points. That is why, as discussed in the usual channels, I will provide flexibility on the requirement to stay to the end of the debate, so that if colleagues need or want to leave early, without waiting to hear the contributions from the Front Benches in the debate that they have spoken to, they can. All I ask is that they let their Whip, the Government Whips’ Office or the convenor know that they are leaving.

I will not go over previous statements or emails about the usual courtesy in debates, in order to save time and to allow us to move on to the substance of the Bill, but I trust that noble Lords will move forward in line with the guidance on how the Committee should proceed in the spirit of good self-governance and self-regulation, with respect to all colleagues.

My Lords, the Chief Whip will know that I and others have contacted him about this proposal. I accept that the House made its declaration last Thursday—one has to take that seriously and into account. However, the proposal before us now ensures that those of us who cannot go outside the front door, get into our car and drive home will be effectively excluded from a large part of this debate. It is not good enough, if I may say so, to say that we can be excused from the normal courtesies of staying to the end. The purpose of tabling amendments is to hear the response from the proposer of the Bill and the Minister. I know that we can get up at any point and move an adjournment or the resumption of the House, but I do not think we want to get into a situation where we are bouncing around and looking around to see whether we can win a vote for an adjournment.

We need an agreed situation, and certainly I, with others, will be giving consideration to that over the weekend and perhaps returning to the noble Lord at the beginning of the week with some suggestions that accept and acknowledge the will of the House expressed last Thursday but, at the same time, do not mean that those of us who have to travel a distance are effectively faced with the situation of having to stay over for the weekend, or at least until Saturday. If we are leaving here at or around 6 pm, it is impossible for us to get home, and therefore we would have to stay over.

As for the current proposal for today, to be bounced into that at 5.30 pm on Wednesday, when we make bookings weeks in advance and perhaps have commitments that we have already entered into, it is utterly impossible to react. How can you change your plans at that late stage?

I know that we are all in politics and we have to adjust, and the House has its natural rhythms, but I have to say that this discriminates against anybody who has to travel a significant distance. We are against discrimination in this House, and I do not think that discriminating on the basis of geography is fair. We will have to revisit this and see whether we can find a way forward that meets the will of the House expressed last Thursday, while at the same time not excluding or effectively disadvantaging those of us who have to travel a significant distance.

I have huge respect for the noble Lord and other colleagues who serve in this House from all parts of our United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland and Scotland. I accept his points about the inconvenience caused to colleagues. My door remains open, and I will happily meet the noble Lord next week to discuss what we do in future.

I do not come here to annoy and aggravate Members of the House, but I feel that at the moment I am doing just that. That is not my intention. I love the House and I want it to work well. I remain open to any ideas and suggestions that noble Lords might have. People want to use government time but, while I am the Government’s business manager and we have to get the Government’s business through, I am also conscious of party debates and Select Committee reports. I know how important Thursdays are to colleagues, so it is very difficult. But my door is always open to any colleague to come and discuss any further ideas about how we can move this forward. I am very sorry for the inconvenience to noble Lords today.

My Lords, I seek clarity from the Chief Whip on when we should adjourn discussion of a group and carry it forward to the next designated day after we have reached the official knocking-off time, shall we say? He will know that on Tuesday last, when we were due to finish at 11 pm, at 10.58 pm the Whip on duty suggested that we should adjourn the debate and continue the next day, even though there was only one Peer left to speak. We resolved that matter with the Chief Whip’s help, continued the discussion and finished at 11.08 pm. Contrast that with last Friday when, at 2.30 pm, with four Peers waiting to speak, the Whip on duty decided that we needed to hear from the Front Bench because the whole group had to be concluded by 3 pm. I do not think that is in accordance with our procedures. I would like some clarity from the Chief Whip on whether we should be able to carry forward the remaining discussion on a group if we have not completed it by the official stopping time.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who is obviously an experienced Member of this House. Ideally, when we are discussing any legislation, it is better to conclude a group of amendments on the day than not doing so—that is just better for the management of the House’s business—but sometimes that is not possible and, when that is the case, I fully accept that we should adjourn mid-group and then come back to it the next day. If that happens today at any point, I will ensure that happens.

My Lords, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said. I know that many of our Scottish and north of England colleagues are very much affected by this.

I want to draw the Chief Whip’s attention to one thing. The House normally rises around 7 pm on Thursday evenings. That is reflected by the fact that, for example, there is no dinner in the Peers’ Dining Room on Thursday evenings. Would it not be possible for the Lords instead to sit until 10 pm, say, and then release us at 3 pm on Fridays so that we do not incur extra expense, which the House has to pay, because of this change of business?

I am very happy to discuss that further with the noble Baroness next week and with the usual channels, but up to now, of course, PMBs have been dealt with on Fridays. I think all my colleagues in the usual channels want to keep to that—I certainly do—but I am very happy to have that discussion next week to find another way forward to do what the House wants, which is to find more time for this Bill. We will see if we can do that, but I am very happy to have that discussion next week.

My Lords, I want to raise the concern of Jewish Members of the House, who are in a particular difficulty on Fridays. Perhaps it is better for somebody who is not Jewish to put that forward and ask if the noble Lord can look at that very carefully.

I thank the noble Lord for his point. I genuinely understand that; I am very conscious of that. I do not wish to cause any Member who is Jewish, or of any other faith, distress, inconvenience or problems in their faith by sitting beyond 3 pm. It is why I suggested that people could leave without hearing the debates, but that may not be acceptable to some colleagues. I am aware of that. I will discuss what else we can do, but I apologise. It is not my intention to cause noble Lords who are Jewish distress or problems with their faith.

My Lords, I would like a point of clarification from the noble Lord. Before I express that, I think I speak for the whole House when I say that we understand what a difficult position the noble Lord finds himself in, and how fair he is trying to be to all sides in attempting to resolve this. I am certainly extremely grateful to him for the consistent fairness he has displayed to the House.

My point is about the procedures of the House. When we had that unusual Motion last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, a former Leader of the House, raised an important point at the end: does this affect precedent and future procedure on Private Members’ Bills? I do not think she got an adequate response.

While I appreciate the noble Lord’s flexibility in allowing noble Lords to leave before the end of the debate on a particular amendment—I completely endorse all the comments made by colleagues who live further away from the House about the troubles they would encounter—when we change the procedures of the House and more or less drive a coach and horses through the Companion, are we not expected to have a debate and make it clear that we are not setting precedent? Should we not be having a vote on that?

I thank the noble Baroness for her very kind comments, which are much appreciated. We are a self-regulating House. We have a Companion; we do not have fixed rules, but we have conventions, and we all try to work around those. That enables the House to work in the unique way it does. In some ways it is not like the House of Commons. I know colleagues who come from the House of Commons say how strange they find it when they first arrive here, but it does work.

Although the Companion advises us to rise at around 3 pm on Fridays, I checked and since 2021 we have sat beyond 3 pm on PMBs 24 times. We have already sat beyond 3 pm on the two days of Second Reading for this Bill. Although it is advisory and it is the convention, it is not a hard and fast rule. We do not have those sorts of hard and fast rules.

On the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, because we are self-regulating, I do not think it sets a precedent. At the end of the day, this House can decide what it wants. As I said earlier, if noble Lords want to adjourn at 3 pm and carry a Motion on it, then we will adjourn at 3 pm. However, I accept that this is a very important Bill and there are strongly held views on both sides. People want to give it scrutiny and we have to have the flexibility to ensure that is what happens.

My Lords, for the obvious reason, I want to place on record my personal thanks to the Government Chief Whip, because I know he takes these matters extremely seriously. He is placed in an invidious position because our procedures, it seems to me, are just not designed for large, controversial, notionally Private Members’ Bills of this nature. The Government Chief Whip, for whom I have the highest personal regard, is really caught in the middle in a very difficult position. I wanted to put my thanks on record.

I should tell the House the way we are going to deal with it today. My noble friend Lord Kamall is attending Friday prayers, so I am here. Then from 3 pm, when I will be observing Shabbat, he will be here. I hope that is an example of the ecumenical way these Benches deal with these matters.

I thank the noble Lord for those very kind comments. Again, I say that, although this is difficult, I have only ever had courtesy and warm discussions from colleagues around the House with different views. It is challenging at the moment, but I love being the Government Chief Whip and the Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms. It is an absolute honour and privilege. I want to work to serve the House to get this right; thank you very much.