Labour could have blocked the government’s latest anti-union laws. They chose not to.
Unions and their members woke this morning in a new world, one in which the “hostile environment” for their collective work, the already highly restrictive framework of laws in place…
‘Growing confidence’ House of Lords will block Tory attempts to scrap pollution regulations, Green Party peer says
Green Party peer Jenny Jones has said she has 'growing confidence' that the House of Lords will vote down government amendments to the Levelling Up Bill that would scrap pollution…
Labour could have stopped the Illegal Migration Bill in the House of Lords. They chose not show up.
The Illegal Migration Bill finally got through the Lords yesterday as the Conservatives turned up to vote and 40% of the Labour peers didn’t. For me this shows the flawed…
A battle over the right to protest is being fought in parliament this week
The sheer number of amendments and likely votes on the Public Order Bill has led to the Lords taking an extra day for Report Stage, next Monday. The opposition last…
What happened in the House of Lords in 2022?
As so many reviews of the year will say, what a year 2022 was. And not in a good way. From the perspective of the House of Lords chamber, it…
What does the House of Lords do? – Interview with Green Party peer Natalie Bennett
On the second episode of #BrightGreenLive, our editor Chris Jarvis interviewed Green Party peer Natalie Bennett. During the interview, they discussed what the role of the House of Lords is…
Liz Truss handing out more peerages would ‘further damage Westminster’s legitimacy’, political reform campaigners warn
Political reform group the Electoral Reform Society has said it would "further damage Westminster's legitimacy" if Liz Truss creates a new batch of peers. The group has also called for…
The Environment Bill needs to go much further
Amendments to Bills can be opaque, impenetrable things: “delete the word ‘may’ and replace with ‘must’” and such like. Even with the increasingly standard practice of including a sentence of…
It’s time for the government to stop panicking and start planning
It has felt like a very, very long six months. But that’s how long it is since March, when the House of Lords, its older members absent, its atmosphere distinctly…
Our approach to science research funding needs an overhaul
An awful lot has happened in the past 12 months, but when the House of Lords today sat down on Wednesday to consider a report from August 2019 on the…