Contributions
440 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]My Lords, it is my pleasure to present to the House a simple, two-clause Bill that costs nothing and hurts no one, and which would scrap once and for all the ludicrous system of…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]My Lords, I do not think that I will give way again, much as I enjoy the interventions, but “holes” and “stop digging” occur to me every time someone intervenes. People will…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]My Lords, I am a lifelong season ticket holder at Stoke City, so I am used to lost causes—but you do win occasionally. Sooner or later, I will win with this, I am quite sure about…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]It was not complied with, as he perfectly well knows. You do not need a second general election in order to validate the promises made at the first one a few weeks before. We are…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]Is the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, suggesting that a week or so after winning a majority of 150 in the House of Commons, on a manifesto commitment to get rid of all the hereditaries,…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]I am not sure that I understood that intervention. I have read most of Alastair Campbell’s memoirs—but I can tell the noble Lord what was going on in Downing Street in 1999,…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]My Lords, I wish that people did not have trains to go to, because I have about five hours of rebuttal here—and, my word, some of it does need rebutting. I probably need to…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]I can only assume from that that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, would have been in favour of a Prime Minister, with a clear manifesto promise and a huge majority in the Commons,…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]Sorry, there is one from Wales; I will correct that. There is one Peer from Wales, the West Midlands and the north-east combined and there are 19 from London and the south-east.…03 Dec 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]That the Bill be now read a second time.03 Dec 2021HANSARDProcedure and Privileges CommitteeMy Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friends Lady Quin and Lord Rooker, especially my noble friend Lord Rooker’s trip down memory lane, when he was the Deputy Leader and…01 Dec 2021HANSARDProcedure and Privileges CommitteeAt the end insert “but that this House regrets the diminution in the role of the Lord Speaker”.01 Dec 2021HANSARDDissolution and Calling of Parliament BillMy Lords, the House might allow me to mention that, in June 2014, a Labour Back-Bencher introduced the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill. I happen to have a copy of it…30 Nov 2021HANSARDRail Infrastructure: North of EnglandCan the Minister confirm that upgrading an existing Victorian railway as opposed to building a brand-new railway is not a pain-free option? It will lead inevitably to weekend…18 Nov 2021HANSARDHouse of Lords: Appointments ProcessMy Lords, I will not even try to follow that. In two minutes, there is virtually nothing one can say; no great points can be made and I am certainly not going to enter a…18 Nov 2021HANSARDHereditary Peers By-electionYes—thanking the returning officer and commiserating with the other candidates. I think that would enhance the by-elections and our understanding of them. Maybe, if we really…15 Nov 2021HANSARDHereditary Peers By-electionI am grateful to our Clerk for acting as returning officer and giving us the result of another dramatic by-election. Normally, when by-election results are passed on, the…15 Nov 2021HANSARDHereditary Peers: By-electionsMy Lords, I am not in the least surprised by that reply. As the noble Lord knows, a by-election is taking place as we speak—the drama of it is among all of us. It is the seventh…10 Nov 2021HANSARDHereditary Peers: By-electionsTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the operation of section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999; and what plans they have, if any, to amend section…10 Nov 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: Food ShortagesI am sure the Minister knows well enough that even prior to the national takeover by the Taliban, large swathes of Afghanistan were in effect controlled by the Taliban, and in…09 Nov 2021