Labour Peers Want New Rules For Lords Debates After A Rise In Midnight Sittings
Peers say they have been experiencing frequent late nights in recent weeks (Alamy)
5 min read
Labour peers are calling for new limits on House of Lords debates following what they describe as an increase in the number of votes taking place in the early hours of the morning.
Lord (Jim) Knight said the unelected chamber should look at "time-limiting debates" to protect peers, particularly elderly members, from being forced to stay on the parliamentary estate late into the night.
Knight said the Lords is "too large, with too many people saying the same thing over and over again", adding that unless there is a "sudden breakout of self-discipline, we will have to start earlier in the day and ultimately look at time-limiting debates".
"This is urgent. Us youngsters in our 60s are struggling, but it is not right for those in their 80s and 90s to work up to and beyond midnight," he told PoliticsHome.
Knight added that, based on his experience, Uber drivers tend to avoid crossing the River Thames late at night, which means peers often have to walk across Westminster Bridge to find a taxi.
While the unelected chamber has historically faced longer sessions, peers say the late nights have increased in frequency in recent weeks due to the sheer amount of legislation being put to Parliament by the Labour government. Unlike the House of Commons, there is no time limit on the proceedings of the House of Lords.
On the days when both chambers sat over the past month, the House of Lords sat later than MPs 15 times, and the Commons sat later just once, PoliticsHome analysis found.
Peers have voted on the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill — which seeks to remove hereditary peers — until after midnight on more than one occasion, with a debate on the legislation earlier this month not starting until almost 9pm.
Debates on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill have also kept peers in Westminster until late in the night.
One peer told PoliticsHome that the late nights are "part and parcel of a new government in power that has a big program of legislation that it wants to get through".
However, a different Labour peer complained that the Tory opposition is to blame for the rise in late nights, accusing the Conservative peers of "bringing the House into disrepute".
There are currently 287 Tory peers and 211 Labour peers in the House of Lords.
"Tabling hundreds of amendments, many saying the same thing, degrouping amendments on the same topic so that they have to be debated separately, filibustering, using guerrilla tactics like adjourning the house — these are not the actions of a serious opposition but of a Tory party which has thrown its toys out of the pram because it lost the election," the Labour peer said.
The same peer said that the procedures of the house "need to be revised" to prevent the opposition, of whatever political persuasion, from frustrating the mandate of the elected government.
"This would involve giving the Lords Speaker the powers of the Commons Speaker. The ability to choose amendments and speakers would be a start," they said.
In the Lords, unlike the Commons, every amendment is debatable.
A Labour source in the Lords told PoliticsHome that the recent late nights were mostly influenced by attitudes towards the Hereditary Peers Bill, with opposition peers filibustering and “engaging in procedural shenanigans on other legislation”.
The source said that, while most of the time they know when there is going to be a vote on an amendment, “sometimes we are keeping the whip on because we just don’t know whether there will be a vote on a certain amendment or if the opposition is going to engage in procedural shenanigans and adjourn the House”.
“We are protecting government business by keeping peers around.”
The Labour source added: “There are only so many days in the year and so many hours in the week, and it all has a domino effect. It’s relentless at the moment and will be like that for some time yet.”
Late last month, the House of Lords was unable to hold a late-night vote on post-Brexit regulations for goods sold in Northern Ireland, as it was not quorate. The Lords requires 30 peers to be present for a vote to take place, but only 26 were present at around 10.30pm on Monday, 30 June, when a division was called. Peers say this was the result of fatigue, adding that they voted until midnight on the two following days.
Lord (Nicholas) True, the Tory shadow leader in the House of Lords, described the claim that Conservative peers were using "guerrilla" tactics as "ludicrous and embarrassing".
"There has been no attempt to delay the Hereditary Peers Bill, which will pass the Lords this month," he told PoliticsHome.
"It is the Labour Chief Whip who keeps scores of his peers in the House night after night quite unnecessarily. Many of us have been very surprised to see it...
"The House of Lords does its revising job, whoever is in office. Labour is quick to forget it set all-time records in defeating government legislation in the last parliament. There was no talk of guerrilla tactics then. The House of Lords works well when there are good relations between the two main parties. We want that."
Additional reporting by Sienna Rodgers.
