Contributions
440 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDElections BillI am the wrong person to ask about directly elected mayors or police and crime commissioners because I have always been opposed to both. On the method whereby they are elected, I…23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillMy Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, arguing for consensual politics in a characteristically aggressive speech—and it is a pleasure to follow the…23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillCould the noble Lord remind us of his sample size? Mine was 19.2 million.23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillI do not normally draw attention to this but my noble friend and I were both working in No. 10 at the same time. I would say two things: first, if that was ever discussed, I never…23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillIf I heard aright, the noble Lord said that I stood in the election of 2010, but I am afraid that I was in the House of Lords by that stage.23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillI shall certainly follow the injunction not to speak at length, but I cannot resist responding to arguments about proportional representation. Oddly enough, I think I am the first…23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillWell, to bring Dominic Cummings into it sounds like a good argument to a point that I was not discussing and do not intend to discuss. The referendum was a condition of the…23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillI was listening carefully to the noble Baroness’s speech, and she seemed to be suggesting that quite a lot of votes were not votes for Greens at all but votes for her personally.…23 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillCan the noble Lord enlighten the House by telling us how many results of mayoral elections would have had a different result had they been held under first past the post?23 Mar 2022HANSARDDissolution and Calling of Parliament BillMy Lords, we should not let this moment pass without reminding ourselves of precisely what a bizarre set of circumstances we find ourselves in. I remind the House that the Lords…22 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillHas the noble Lord finished? I am sure my noble friend will deal with his query, which has been dealt with thoroughly already. The Labour Party is a voluntary organisation which…21 Mar 2022HANSARDConstitutional ReformMy Lords, as the Minister is aware, there is currently a parliamentary by-election taking place in this House, the result of which is to be declared a week on Wednesday. I have…21 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillWell, I do not suppose that surprises me. I bet one bit of research they have done and been careful to check on—I cannot be as generous as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on this—is…21 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillI absolutely agree. I would add only one point to my noble friend’s observations. If we regard the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust as a reputable research body, it is saying that…21 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillI will not intervene again, but I asked the noble Lord, Lord True, whether he could rely on the integrity of the electoral system and the mechanisms that returned an 80-seat…17 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillCould the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, just help us with something? Having gone down this road, we need to complete the journey. I think I understand why he was removed from the Labour…17 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillMy Lords, would it not have been nice if, when the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, finished, we could have all said, “Game, set, match and tournament. Let us do the Government a favour,…17 Mar 2022HANSARDBusiness of the HouseMy Lords, just to reinforce what has already been said, may I say that the problem is simple and so is the solution? The problem is that the Government are trying to do too much…17 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillMy Lords, I agree very much with what has been said by both my noble friend Lord Collins and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who bring a tremendous amount of experience to this…15 Mar 2022HANSARDElections BillMy Lords, a kind of fiction has prevailed over a very long period of election history that, somehow or other, the crucial electoral battleground is each individual constituency.…15 Mar 2022